Pick Your Leader Challenge 1

To get more information about play-balancing the civs, I would like to ask your help by participating in a Pick Your Leader Challenge. I have created a 9 player, noble difficulty map with 9 fixed start locations. Then I made 9 copies of the map, where a different civ is at each start location. I would like you to play all or some of the 9 maps at the same starting location, and give us feedback about which civ seemed easy or hard, and why. There obviously won't be any difference in your starting location, which will rule out one main variable in this type of comparison.

The nine games are attached. You will need to use the new 1.7 release. You can unzip the games anywhere and double-click on one to start the game. Or you can unzip them into My Games/Beyond The Sword/saves/WorldBuilder and use the "Custom Scenario" menu choice. Each game has the name of a civ. When you start the game, you will be prompted to choose which civ you would like to play; please choose the same civ as given in the filename. If you think of the map as the dial of a clock, you will be starting at 4:00, on the right side a little below center. If your start position is elsewhere, please double check the file name and your civ choice.

If you prefer to play on a difficulty besides Noble, this can be done and it isn't that hard. You may adjust the difficulties of all the civs in the game screen. Or, you may edit the starting file as shown in the spoiler:

The type of feedback I would like is, which civ seemed easier or harder to win with? Playing several civs on the same map, does some particular feature of a civ seem overpowered or underpowered? Are there particular strategies which fit very well (or very poorly) with one civ?

We do not feel the civs are perfectly balanced yet, so you may find some weird results. When I tested the same map using AI autoplays, the Ecaz civ often came out on top. The Fremen civ often came out on the bottom, but we believe this is because the AI does not use some of their abilities effectively. If that is correct, then human players should find the Fremen game has the same difficulty as the others.

Please post feedback here. You may also find the threads Version 1.7 feedback and play-balancing the civs helpful.

Your feedback will help make a more balanced game!

reserved

I'll try some of these.

Factions are obviously designed to play better with particular strategies, so its best to try to focus on those.

Human Fremen is very different to AI-Fremen; just take a look at the current succession game, where players were able to blitz very effectively using crysknife fighter swarms. Maybe that unit should only have 1 movement, so its 2 moves on desert rather than 4?
Or stillsuits tech more expensive (its very cheap)?

Ahriman said:

Human Fremen is very different to AI-Fremen; just take a look at the current succession game, where players were able to blitz very effectively using crysknife fighter swarms. Maybe that unit should only have 1 movement, so its 2 moves on desert rather than 4?

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We want each civ to be powerful in its own unique way. Let's first determine whether human Fremen is *over* powered. So far, we know that AI Fremen is *under* powered, but we assume this is due to the AI not knowing how to use them.

I won as the BG (monarch difficulty, holy war) without once declaring war, just defended against the Laza Tigers and some random Harkonnen vultures. Reverend Mothers are way overpowered...I converted all of my neighbors to extinction. Converting a city should be doubly expensive, and maybe the last city/capital should not be allowed to be converted, and there should be a permanent -2 political malus for each city converted for ALL civs (Ordos was friendly to me and willingly vassalized even though I stole 2 of their most productive cities). Also, the AI needs to realize that newly converted cities are very vulnerable to attack and should do so rather than retreating troops.

This is the first game I played with war of the assassins as a civic (100% espionage).

Converting a city should be doubly expensive, and maybe the last city/capital should not be allowed to be converted

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Agreed.

and there should be a permanent -2 political malus for each city converted for ALL civs

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For *all* civs? So if I steal a Harkonnen city the Atreides get mad at me? I don't support this.
A permanent diplomacy penalty against any faction whose city you steal, absolutely.

Also, the AI needs to realize that newly converted cities are very vulnerable to attack and should do so rather than retreating troops.

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Were they already at war with you, and just moved away? Or were you at peace?

AnotherPacifist said:

Reverend Mothers are way overpowered...I converted all of my neighbors to extinction. Converting a city should be doubly expensive, and maybe the last city/capital should not be allowed to be converted, and there should be a permanent -2 political malus for each city converted for ALL civs.

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This is exactly the type of feedback I am looking for, thank you very much. Both Slvynn and Ahriman had expressed a similar concern. I took a partial step by making city conversion 5x more expensive, but this is not enough. I can easily double the cost. I can probably prevent a capital from flipping. I am not sure how to implement a specific -2 diplo penalty, although I agree it is an important thing to add. And looking to your next point below, should we also add a chance that the AI directly declares war? Or is the diplo penalty enough to make this happen on its own?

the AI needs to realize that newly converted cities are very vulnerable to attack and should do so rather than retreating troops.

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Were you at war with the AI player whose troops were retreating? That does not happen automatically. If you were not at war, I guess the AI did not choose to declare war, so it retreated instead. If you were at war, then this seems like a poor AI decision. I do not understand the general AI code well enough to make this type of change. Surprisingly, the convert city is a vanilla mission, it is just deactivated in the xml. So I would need to create an example where this happens in vanilla, post it on the BBAI sub-forum, and hope to attract the attention of the AI gurus there.

As I said, I was never at war directly myself (I owned Landsraad and elected many times), so it was always at peace when I converted the cities. For example, my first conversion was the Corrino capital right north of me, and they had 15+ units (probably more since all I could see were suspensor transports) that got flipped back to their land after the conversion. He was already furious at me (no fault of mine, since he DOW'd initially on me), so I made sure to move some preloaded transports in and unload the same turn. But then after that, I had many cities flipped which were undefended for 1-2 turns and the AI didn't attack, no matter how bad the diplo was. (Space ports are essential)

So I would say, there should be a small (5% chance) that the AI will DOW automatically when flipping a city, and that chance should go up as the diplo malus goes up. It just does not make sense for the Atreides to be still pleased (nay, even MORE pleased as my newly converted cities don't impinge on their culture) after I flip city after city until they were ASSIMILATED.

Yes, I meant ALL civs (barring vassals) should be suspicious of you if you steal a city, maybe only omit that if you're at war with the victimized civ (since it's within the rules of war). ("If it can happen to the Corrino it can happen to me")

Yes, I meant ALL civs (barring vassals) should be suspicious of you if you steal a city

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I don't think this makes sense. If I declare war on civ A, only A's freinds will get a dipomatic penalty.

Surely diplomatically annexing a city is not as disreputable as declaring war and potentially taking multiple cities by force.

Why should civ B (who hates civ A) care if I annex one of A's cities, when they wouldn't care even if I invaded A (they might even get a bonus with me if they are at war with A)?

I imagine the city theft as like a 19th century Great Powers colonial disputes kindof setting; basically they get together in a meeting and make decisions about who owns which colonies (or fiefdoms). And stealing the city is basicalyl using political maniupulation/intrigue/bribes to change who owns that fief.

I gave myself a challenge and vowed to:
A. never kill a unit other than smugglers (I declared war on Fremen just to kiss ass to the Ecaz next door but never saw action)
B. no DP with anybody
C. not adopt Zensufi until I got some good relations going (this is the reason why the AI never has OB when playing Tleilax and lags behind with tech trading)
D. win by cultural (which is very hard due to the lack of altars of Shai-Hulud
E. Build as many wonders as possible (harder due to not being industrious)

I founded most of the religions by default but of course being Tleilax I couldn't, so other civs get the benefit of my tech. I built almost all the wonders except for a few early ones.

Some bugs and concerns:


Can somebody please load my game and play 1 turn (I'm getting the waiting for other civs loop again)?

What happened to power (now the automated factories and science labs don't have power)?

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It doesn't really serve any purpose with the power plant removed, it should be removed.

The Technocracy religious buildings have not actually been updated the design I thought we'd agreed on.

Automated factory = 40% hammers, +10% hammers with Ixian Technologies (currently Ixian Weapons) resource. +2 unhappy.
Requires Technocracy religion.

Computerized Research lab = +40% beakers, +10% beakers with Ixian Technologies. +2 unhappy.
Requires Technocracy religion.

Also, what good is Golden Path if you can't actually build it?

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Why can't you build it?
Its a Quizarate religion building; you have Quizarate in the city?

I've never been able to build the atomic project, is it disabled by default?

I think the later techs need to have some tangible benefit for me to research them (like Weirding way, Thinking Machines), even though they are designed for specific civs like BG and Ix.

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It is intended that the top end of the tech tree get a major redesign. I haven't had time/inspiration yet to do a proper proposal.

There are some ideas around somewhere from the last couple of weeks, but I cannot seem to find the thread right now; anyone have a link?

We really should try to keep an index thread.
Make a thread, sticky it, let common posters have 1 post each that they can use to index particular design discussions as they come up.

davidlallen said:

To get more information about play-balancing the civs, I would like to ask your help by participating in a Pick Your Leader Challenge.

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You posted in the Civ 4 Sucession Game Registration Thread, but the link goes to the 2nd DW SG. I think you should link this thread instead.

negyvenketto said:

You posted in the Civ 4 Sucession Game Registration Thread, but the link goes to the 2nd DW SG. I think you should link this thread instead.

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Oops, thanks for spotting that. I fixed it.

AnotherPacifist said:

BG is automatically named Dave in the saved scenarios

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Yes, the Reverend Mothers sneak into your city on turn 1 and use the Voice: "YOU WILL CALL ME DAVE!". It is cosmetic, and I will fix it if I create another set of games. If it bothers you, you can edit the save file, which is plain text. Search for "Dave" and change it to "Helen Gaius Mohiam".

What happened to power (now the automated factories and science labs don't have power)?

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There shouldn't be any reference to power in any of the buildings. If there is a reference, it is something I should clean up. Power plays no more role in the game.

Can somebody please load my game and play 1 turn (I'm getting the waiting for other civs loop again)?

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You may consider this as either bad news or good news: I am able to reproduce the hang on this game. Your previous game and one game of Ahriman's would not hang for me, but this one does. So I will attempt to debug and figure out why. I am not sure exactly how to do that, but thank you for the testcase.

In the meantime, sometimes I find that if I go back to an autosave and replay slightly differently, I will get past the hang point. This is because whatever random number or exact situation was causing the hang, no longer exists. I understand that this replay is frustrating and may not work anyway, but it sounds like you had tried an interesting setup and I would be interested in further feedback.

One key point you have already found, is that Tleilaxu wind up lagging in tech normally because their religion prevents most AIs from doing OB and then tech trading. This matches what I found with the autoplays. What can we think about doing to improve their poor performance, while still keeping their isolationist theme?

Ahriman said:

The Technocracy religious buildings have not actually been updated the design I thought we'd agreed on.

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The only difference there should be is that I did not add the extra yield from Ixian Technologies. We had discussed that point and failed to agree. If you see other differences, please let me know.

We really should try to keep an index thread.

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I agree there are a lot of posts in a lot of different threads, and it is hard to keep track of. I have a local spreadsheet where I copy all the interesting ideas with a note to what thread/post they came from. I have posted this spreadsheet at different times, but I can see the number of downloads of these sheets is zero. That means nobody ever looks into the sheet except for me.

It is easy to create a thread and sticky it. I haven't seen other mods do this; is there a similar model from other mod forums we could use? Also possibly we could each use browser bookmarks to remember particular posts we want to come back to.

The only difference there should be is that I did not add the extra yield from Ixian Technologies. We had discussed that point and failed to agree. If you see other differences, please let me know.

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The other difference is that the buildings as implemented still get a bonus with power, but power should no longer exist.
And the yields are wrong; your base yields are still 25%, which is too weak. These are expensive buildings that give unhappiness penalties; they need large yields. 40% is my suggestion.

What is your objection to a minor Technocracy/Ix synergy bonus? It makes logical/fluff sense, and other religions have synergies with particular factions too.

I have posted this spreadsheet at different times, but I can see the number of downloads of these sheets is zero. That means nobody ever looks into the sheet except for me.

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I have regularly downloaded your sheet of "to-do" issues (lists of suggestions, sorted by type) if this is what you mean.

with a note to what thread/post they came from.

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Do you happen to have a link to our recent discussion of high-end tech tree changes? I couldn't find it.
I might be able to work on this tonight for a while.

I haven't seen other mods do this; is there a similar model from other mod forums we could use?

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I think every other mod that is as active as this one has a private developer forum, or is all in one guy's head (Planetfall == Maniac AFAIK)

I have an index thread for Warhammer in the private team forum. Nothing special, just a set of links with brief summary of what they're talking about.

Eg:


Though a bit out of date now.
It helps a lot, particularly since the Warhammer mod has 28 factions, each with a bunch of UUs.

We also have a unified design thread for that mod:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=334546

Ahriman said:

The other difference is that the buildings as implemented still get a bonus with power, but power should no longer exist. And the yields are wrong; your base yields are still 25%, which is too weak. These are expensive buildings that give unhappiness penalties; they need large yields. 40% is my suggestion.

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Thanks for the clarification. Since power no longer exists, a building which gets an additional bonus from power should be viewed as a documentation bug. I will clean those up. I will also raise the bonus from 25% to 40%. That seems strong to me, but we can try it.

What is your objection to a minor Technocracy/Ix synergy bonus? It makes logical/fluff sense, and other religions have synergies with particular factions too.

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I don't have any specific objection. In the past the religion and the civilization have had too much overlap, at least in my opinion. So I have removed the overlap. It would be nice if anybody besides the two of us gave an opinion on this, but so far this has not come up in anybody's playtest comments.

I think every other mod that is as active as this one has a private developer forum, or is all in one guy's head (Planetfall == Maniac AFAIK) ... I have an index thread for Warhammer in the private team forum. Nothing special, just a set of links with brief summary of what they're talking about.

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Thanks for sending the example threads, but of course since they are in private forums, I cannot see them. I have a general disagreement with private forums, since we occasionally get people wandering by who have excellent suggestions for debugging (God-Emperor) or contribute code (Sephi). I think we would miss out on that by having a private forum. If you would like to create an index thread for this forum, I certainly have no objection; any person can request a thread to be stickied by PM'ing a moderator such as thunderfall.

There are many special purpose threads in this forum which were used for specific discussions, such as the tech tree redesign, or wonder design threads, or older BG mechanics thread. It seems to me those are what you mean. Is the problem that we have several active feedback threads in which discussions start, and then we can't remember which thread they started in? For example, we have the modpack thread, the 1.7 feedback thread, the succession game thread, and the pick your leaders thread, all of which are receiving random feedback. In many cases, somebody redirects the discussion back to an appropriate specific thread. Perhaps we should be stronger about redirecting? I am afraid of being called a "thread Nazi" by telling people that certain conversation does not belong on certain threads.

should be viewed as a documentation bug

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Agreed.

but so far this has not come up in anybody's playtest comments.

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Ok, but its hard to get feedback on a feature that isn't implemented.

That seems strong to me, but we can try it.

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For comparison, a tier1 building (refinery) that is much cheaper gives +25% hammers and +1 unhealth, and does not require a specific religion.

Or compare it to the vanilla factory, that gives +50% hammers with power, and does not require a specific religion.

A religion that does not appear until late game must be powerful, otherwise there is no point in spreading it much and no real reward for trying to found it.

Thanks for sending the example threads, but of course since they are in private forums

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To clarify; the spoiler text was the contents of a particular index thread, with links elsewhere. You don't need to be able to follow the links, it was just an example of what I meant by an Index.
I agree that we don't need a developer forum, but it just means that we need to be a bit more efficiency in the main forum

I am as guilty as any of shifting topics with new proposals; any time I get a good idea I'll try to explain it and post it, sometimes I'll get multiple unrelated ideas while writing a particular post. I think this is natural, and I don't think thread nazism is conducive to creative design.
And sometimes "general mod ideas" don't fit well into a particular thread category anyway. For example: this discussion isn't about the "Pick your leader challenge", but there is no obvious thread to put it in, and it would be confusing to chop every natural discussion as soon as it veers slightly offtopic.

I'll create an index thread that anyone can reserve a post in, and try to index some conversations, hopefully others can do this as well.

I agree with Ahriman on late religions and their relative lack of power currently--Quizarate in particular, since Golden Path just gives happiness (who needs it when you should already have a big empire with lots of happiness resources) and negative science.

I think to overcome the AI Tleilaxu from stagnating in isolation, they should not adopt a state religion until a certain point (e.g. when they have enough tech/power or number of cities) so that they can benefit from OB/tech trades with other civs. Is it possible to introduce a tech (or maybe give fanaticism that role) that specifically allows you to adopt a state religion; i.e. at default you cannot have a state religion?