Yep, I meant Great Artist points.
And I didn't say this but I like that version of HG a lot. I'm not totally sold on the new GL but I dont' have a better suggestion.
v142.8 on Emperor
- Thread starter Txurce
- Start date
And I didn't say this but I like that version of HG a lot. I'm not totally sold on the new GL but I dont' have a better suggestion.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I'd be okay with reducing the quarry to +1
for stone, instead of +2. I think the quarry does get a production bonus at a later tech... machinery I believe. Without:
- Player A gets 10
from terrain. - Player B gets 5 from terrain.
- Player A has 200% income of Player B.
- Player A gets 25 (10 terrain, 15 empire).
- Player B gets 20 (5 terrain, 15 empire).
- Player A has 125% income of Player B.
The counterpoint appears to be that the game feels easier. The straightforward way to solve that is to increase AI bonuses. I think we might have reduced the bonuses too much when those opportunity & AI purchasing bugs existed.
- Empires decentralized.
- Start locations are more balanced.
- Early opportunity costs can be higher.
- More flexibility in the early game.
border expansion costs scale better.
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- Aug 7, 2010
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Well they're just ideas - Thal hasn't yet commented on them, but hopefully they gave him some food for thought.
I'd be okay with reducing the quarry to +1
That sounds fine.
Without:
With:
- Player A gets 10
- Player B gets 5
- Player A has 200% income of Player B.
It's a fixed amount for every player, making the differences much closer. Balancing start locations is just one of the areas of the game this improved. Reducing the bonus would make these and other things worse:
- Player A gets 25
- Player B gets 20
- Player A has 125% income of Player B.
I don't think anyone is proposing dropping the free gold entirely (I'm certainly not!) - just taken back a step, ideally by difficulty level. If that's not appealing, how about lowering it to 10 or 12 as some people suggested? In the second example above Player A would have 133% more than Player B with the gold dropped to 10 - not much of a difference, and still much less than 200%.
I agree, but still hold by that reducing the gold is a good idea (if it wasn't obvious
).
Txurce
Deity
I see that point. It just feels like too much gold, too soon to me, and others. I don't enjoy the game as much. Increasing AI bonuses would make the game more competitive, but doesn't affect how it feels to effectively be given a free worker or improvement in the first 8-15 turns. But given how extensive the dialogue above was, I think you get our point as well, so I'll leave it at that.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I accidentally skipped from page 2 to page 4. 
I'm reading back now...
I'm reading back now...
Txurce
Deity
I accidentally skipped from page 2 to page 4.
I'm reading back now...
You have my condolences!
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I support reducing the importance the Great Library and Hanging Gardens. 
I agree this helps even things out, which is why I dropped the cost by 25% in v137 (from 80 to 60). I'm hesitant to drop it again so soon after the last change. Also, we need to consider pthmix's point about yield inequality.
supply would increase the value of each unit of 1, increasing the inequality pthmix described. To reduce the value of production, we need to raise its supply. This is the same as how inflating science and culture numbers in an earlier version de-valued the importance of those yields.
In other words... to devalue production and mines we can raise early production costs, and raise early production income from non-mine sources like forests, lumbermills, stables, and barracks.
However, with all that said I do think moving 1 from the basic mine/quarry improvement to Iron Working would help balance start locations. We can deal with the production-vs-gold issue separately.
I'll respond to the world wonder discussion in more detail soon. I need to take care of a few things around the house.
I agree this helps even things out, which is why I dropped the cost by 25% in v137 (from 80
to 60). I'm hesitant to drop it again so soon after the last change. Also, we need to consider pthmix's point about yield inequality. I'd like to point out the suggestion to reduceThis is a bit sad because it devalues gold tiles and makes early game yield hierarchy even more obvious:>
/
supply would increase the value of each unit of 1, increasing the inequality pthmix described. To reduce the value of production, we need to raise its supply. This is the same as how inflating science and culture numbers in an earlier version de-valued the importance of those yields.In other words... to devalue production and mines we can raise early production costs, and raise early production income from non-mine sources like forests, lumbermills, stables, and barracks.
However, with all that said I do think moving 1
from the basic mine/quarry improvement to Iron Working would help balance start locations. We can deal with the production-vs-gold issue separately. I'll respond to the world wonder discussion in more detail soon. I need to take care of a few things around the house.
Txurce
Deity
I agree this helps even things out, which is why I dropped the cost by 25% in v137 (from 80
Seek's suggestion to reduce
I believe pthmix said that the 15 free gold indirectly devalues gold tiles. The drop in worker hammer cost was proposed in conjunction with a dip in the present opening 15gpt. Cheaper workers would allow you to generate more hammers or gold or food, depending on your priorities, and make the present gold allowance less necessary. In the end, the difference between the two is that the 15 gold makes the game feel too easy to those arguing against it.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
To ensure iron working isn't too important compared to horseback riding, I moved the Circus and Circus Maximus to horseback riding. Posts in this thread also indicate villages are under-valued, especially next to rivers, so I moved the freshwater village bonus up to Sailing (from Optics). Villages get more trade when people start sailing along rivers and lakes.
I've added each of these suggestions to v146.GL: 4GS points, 1
in the city.
HG: Perhaps give it 4happiness.
I find myself skipping IW often too, and [moving +1 of mines to Iron Working] would work well.
The pyramids have several powerful characteristics:
- Settlers halt growth while the pyramids allow it to continue.
- The pyramids increase the speed of road construction to 150% (2 turns instead of 3) when combined with the Citizenship policy. The policy alone has no effect for roads on normal game speed due to rounding.
- The pyramids provide culture and great engineer points, plus more culture/happiness with the Tradition tree.
Just a point I want to make here, I don't want to see the mod makes the same mistakes that core game did.
One of main issues I had with the core game was how bland developing your empire was, and a good portion of that was how little terrain and tile improvements meant.
VEM did a lot to make improvements much more interesting.
With that in mind, I caution that changes that provide the most balance may not be the best choices. The example above, +1 prod mines are just boring to me, doesn't matter how great a balance improvement it might be.
I think balance is an important aspect, but its certainly not the only aspect.
Right now, the +1 mines, +2 with iron working works for me, as that increases the joy of going down that tech tree. But just something to keep in mind as the balance discussion rolls on.
I think that there's too much gold. You should be required to work gold tiles to afford a standing army or maintaining lots of buildings, just like you're required to work farms for any significant growth and hills to really produce anything within reasonable time. Cities have +2 yes? So they can afford a couple of buildings or units for free. I also think that water tiles shouldn't have buildings that give +1 and +1 on every water tile. No other type of terrain have these types of bonuses, only rivers come even close. Accordingly, all gold costs should be significantly cut, like to a third. If you consider the current state of affairs, gifting 250 to a city-state for 45 
costs the same as maintaining a knight for 50 turns! Knights should be expensive.
I can't speak to the exact balance of the game, or emperor difficulty for that matter. This is just how I feel - there's an excess of gold, resulting in loss of strategy and fun. I don't need to actively work gold tiles, choose my buildings due to maintenance, worry about funding an army or ever build villages, as long as I dilly dally to research currency sometime before the renaissance. Markets and mints are way too significant sources of gold.
yes? So they can afford a couple of buildings or units for free. I also think that water tiles shouldn't have buildings that give +1 and +1 on every water tile. No other type of terrain have these types of bonuses, only rivers come even close. Accordingly, all gold costs should be significantly cut, like to a third. If you consider the current state of affairs, gifting 250 to a city-state for 45 costs the same as maintaining a knight for 50 turns! Knights should be expensive.I can't speak to the exact balance of the game, or emperor difficulty for that matter. This is just how I feel - there's an excess of gold, resulting in loss of strategy and fun. I don't need to actively work gold tiles, choose my buildings due to maintenance, worry about funding an army or ever build villages, as long as I dilly dally to research currency sometime before the renaissance. Markets and mints are way too significant sources of gold.
Cities have +2
No, cities get no inherent gold whatsoever, unless they settle on a gold producing tile like riverside or a calendar lux.
IF we didn't have the LH and Harbor then water tiles would be so weak compared to improved inland tiles no one would ever build a coastal or island city, ever.
I always mod the pyramids to generate 2 GE. They r way more attractive this way for me and a viable option if i want to go for early GE. Also req bit more hammers to compensate the boost. You have stone/marble near by mostly if u aim for this wonder anyway.
I never thought about getting pyramids and no GL to generate a GE early. That's a sound strategy. Combine with a barracks engy for extra fun and profit.
Just thought I'd add that the tradeoff can be smaller if you have a production heavy starting city (because food speeds up settles build tim), marble (although less so now), and that policy in the tradition tree speeding wonder build.
Dunkah
Emperor
![[offtopic]](/images/smilies/offtopic.gif "Offtopic [offtopic]")
Not trying to derail this thread, but several posters had mentioned they prioritize Iron Working very low in this mod.This is a shame becuase in Civ IV if you didn't get Iron Working or Bronze working earlyish in the game you knew that any moment there was going to be Barbarian Axemen or Swordsmen coming over the hill and you would be doomed.
There was an internal clock running and if you chose to beeline those higher techs for early wonder rushes you got screwed if you were in a barbarian zone.
I don't feel like this dynamic is present in Civ V and would love to see it come back. Currently there is very little downside to beelining wherever/ whatever you choose.
[Now back to your regulary scheduled program]
Txurce
Deity
This is a shame becuase in Civ IV if you didn't get Iron Working or Bronze working earlyish in the game you knew that any moment there was going to be Barbarian Axemen or Swordsmen coming over the hill and you would be doomed.
There was an internal clock running and if you chose to beeline those higher techs for early wonder rushes you got screwed if you were in a barbarian zone.
I don't feel like this dynamic is present in Civ V and would love to see it come back. Currently there is very little downside to beelining wherever/ whatever you choose.
Technically this is a long-expired thread (v142.8) so I think commenting on anything that came up here is pertinent. However, I would say Archery is the new Iron Working with regard to your point. Beyond that, there is such a difference with 1upt and City Defense, that it's hard to compare.
rfxmills
Warlord
I know this is an old thread, but it appears the only place the free gold issue is being discussed.
When playing vanilla I don't play on the highest levels as I'd need to use exploits to win/survive against the massive bonus the AI gets. I feel that this free gold is like playing with a cheat code, and turning on extra cheat codes for the AI to compensate isn't the way out.
Do you feel that the AI spending algorithm isn't doing a good job using the extra cash in the early game?
rfxmills
Warlord
I'm just saying that I'd prefer not to get the free gold to make things easier for us, but then have to give the AI help to make it competitive.
