What balance changes are you hoping for?

ThisNameIsTooLo said:

NO no no no no. Absolutely NOT.

By doing that, you ensure that the tech leader of the Ancient Era gets an insurmountable advantage for the rest of the game. The first person to reach the Ancient Era WILL be the first one to reach the Medieval era, and so on so forth. He will also effectively deny any other civ the ability to progress at a reasonable pace, thus locking everyone else out of all victory conditions, except possibly domination. And gods help the world if the tech leader beelines military technologies...

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"And I hold no attachment to the "exactitude" of my idea so it could easily be tweaked around." - from my post. I speak more from a place that ideas can be collaborated on, not Pass/Fail.

The hypothetical first person into the next era didn't receive a free tech, they got to sit on the tech like the king of the hill. The difference from the game at present is that the first person to the next era actually had to WAIT to move forward. Instead at present you would have blurted "HOLY S**** as Hiawatha entered the Atomic Era while you're way in the way back. Also there is no guarantee that someone who was teching in a more balanced way won't take the lead on the other side of the tree. Also, it's just a suggestion. Nothing is being imposed on anyone via my forum post. I operate from this place - that personally I never make any suggestion without assuming it would or could be balanced by the development team behind the game.

As for getting locked out and someone else getting an advantage because they were faster, lets think where else that happens in the game... Wonders, Ancient Ruins, City-State Quests and Alliances, Pantheons, Religions, City Placement, and so on. A big part of what I am proposing is that the tech progression of the game be made interesting by making "discover a tech" with a GS worth using in the first 75% of the game (worth using if you're still planning to go for a tech victory that is). I'm not sure you properly envisioned the idea of more GS's being in the game, which I did mention. Artists have gotten their overhaul for BNW, maybe there can be tweaks to GS's in the future.

If I know someone is the techleader and they entered the Renaissance via banking, I might choose to use a GS to grab Printing Press even though I'm locked out so that I can start building the Leaning Tower. What I'm putting out there doesn't even have to be a hard lockout against the other civs, maybe it could be based on a mathematical total of what the other civs have researched in relationship to the tech leader. Or maybe you just can't BE two eras ahead, period. Whatever makes for better for balance than what we get now with the B-Lining AI who is still allowed to grow ridiculously even though they probably didn't grab fertilizer or something.

The focus is on holding back ridiculous tech runaways so that factors within any given era can come into play. For example, a really streamlined version of history: Forward progress slows while Germany is in a tech lead in WWII (but the US uses some GS's to discover atomic theory). You just need to imagine the game differently.

Could it be perfectly implemented with all factors in the game happening at the current rates that they do (with Victory Conditions in mind)? Absolutely not. But could it be a significant way to overhaul the tech game and still have it be interesting? I think so.

Hulking Lummox said:

The hypothetical first person into the next era didn't receive a free tech, they got to sit on the tech like the king of the hill. The difference from the game at present is that the first person to the next era actually had to WAIT to move forward.

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I could go with the idea that the first civ to enter a new era has to complete the current era, while later civs can go to the next without completing the current era, until they need to.

It would help to stop civs from running away in part of the tree, as I do even though there are costs for taking that route.

Chris Hill said:

I could go with the idea that the first civ to enter a new era has to complete the current era, while later civs can go to the next without completing the current era, until they need to.

It would help to stop civs from running away in part of the tree, as I do even though there are costs for taking that route.

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There is no need to stop players from having an advantage in doing something better. Not in a multiplayer game, which already strains the leader not to attempt to pull ahead without a slingshot, and those don't just come from nowhere.
The only thing to impede is the feature of weak players determining the outcome of the game (e.g. by rolling over to another player's intrigues or war). That is anticompetitive, but also very close to the essential nature of Civ. If you were referring to single player, this is still the issue to stop. Something needs to be altered so that A.I.s don't give the world away to one A.I., but this may be an impossible technical feat.

In most elements of the game, costs rise much more than resources do. To be ahead is never to be insanely ahead, you have to put in as much work to get to the next stage, as the sum of all work to be one stage before you. Random elements of each instance being essential flavour to Civ, the problems are precisely where this elegance is not present. Even Spain is not ridiculous, Spain only reveals the kinds of resources that are not balanced.

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

In most elements of the game, costs rise much more than resources do. To be ahead is never to be insanely ahead, you have to put in as much work to get to the next stage, as the sum of all work to be one stage before you. Random elements of each instance being essential flavour to Civ, the problems are precisely where this elegance is not present. Even Spain is not ridiculous, Spain only reveals the kinds of resources that are not balanced.

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I would agree on principle but there there is a mistake in your reasoning:
Once you reach a certain scientific thresh-hold (public schools) and unlock certain policies it becomes nearly impossible to be caught up. Then you become a scientific snowball. Yes if you make huge mistakes or stop your pace they will eventually catch up to you but, if you reach a level of where you are effectively double the science of your closest opponent (in terms of score), you are in a situation most likely to wipe him off the face of the earth by utilizing said science and bought units. Then you will most likely puppet said cities (with the exception of a couple to be used as staging ground) and in effect you will double (at least) your science output and gold. At this point if the rest of the world is not allied against you, its pretty much over. All these are observations made on multi and hotseat games.
Sometimes even if they do ally they don't have the tech necessary to stop you. Usually a couple of civs will be hopelessly behind as well from the start.

Random elements can work against it but lets face it: If you start in a decent location you have a pretty good chance. If you start in a dream location you pretty much won.
Assuming you know what you are doing.

Well, after getting more info about BNW and reading many posts in this thread, I realized Liberty is probably fine as it is. Because you will have to have a DoF to sell luxuries for lump sumps in BNW, this will slow down Tradition a *lot* and make Liberty much stronger as a result.

Also, I don't know how I missed my biggest beef of all in my original post, but there's one thing I want to see fixed more than anything else: Open Borders. I totally nderstand the point of the Embassy because selling borders early in the game for 50g was a dumb gold source, but it could have been handled better. It is extremely annoying to get cut off from scouting huge areas because the AI ICSed into a choke point before you could get past it. This is really egregious in cases where the map was drawn weird and there is only one land route to multiple other civs and you can't cross it until someone gets Civil Service. Like, really, I've been friends with a guy for hundreds of years, he's bought tons of my stuff, and he would LIKE to let me cross his borders, but he can't.

My proposal: move Open Borders back to Writing but reduce/eliminate the gold value the AI sees in buying your borders. This accomplishes the goal of removing the gold sink without the problem of being cut off.

Light Cleric said:

Well, after getting more info about BNW and reading many posts in this thread, I realized Liberty is probably fine as it is. Because you will have to have a DoF to sell luxuries for lump sumps in BNW, this will slow down Tradition a *lot* and make Liberty much stronger as a result.

Also, I don't know how I missed my biggest beef of all in my original post, but there's one thing I want to see fixed more than anything else: Open Borders. I totally nderstand the point of the Embassy because selling borders early in the game for 50g was a dumb gold source, but it could have been handled better. It is extremely annoying to get cut off from scouting huge areas because the AI ICSed into a choke point before you could get past it. This is really egregious in cases where the map was drawn weird and there is only one land route to multiple other civs and you can't cross it until someone gets Civil Service. Like, really, I've been friends with a guy for hundreds of years, he's bought tons of my stuff, and he would LIKE to let me cross his borders, but he can't.

My proposal: move Open Borders back to Writing but reduce/eliminate the gold value the AI sees in buying your borders. This accomplishes the goal of removing the gold sink without the problem of being cut off.

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Opening borders and accepting embassies early in the game right now is like signing a DoW. So IMHO its better to avoid them even for gold.

I also cant understand what effect the DoF has on Libberty even by selling lux at a better price. Care to elaborate to silly me ?

pilot00 said:

Opening borders and accepting embassies early in the game right now is like signing a DoW. So IMHO its better to avoid them even for gold.

I also cant understand what effect the DoF has on Libberty even by selling lux at a better price. Care to elaborate to silly me ?

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To get settler you must build or buy them...buying has been nerfed (takes longer to get the gold), building is buffed, Liberty has a boost to building Settlers (+1 free)

pilot00 said:

Opening borders and accepting embassies early in the game right now is like signing a DoW. So IMHO its better to avoid them even for gold.

I also cant understand what effect the DoF has on Libberty even by selling lux at a better price. Care to elaborate to silly me ?

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Yeah, I don't risk selling Borders unless the civ is waaaaaaaay far away. I really only do it in a borders-for-borders trade.

Also, the DoF thing for lump sumps means the ability to buy multiple Settlers could be gimped significantly. This really slows down the ability of Tradition to expand compared to Liberty which gets the free Settler + pumps more Settlers out faster. We'll have to see how things play out; I've heard the AI is supposed to be more diplomatic and less psychotic, meaning it might be manageable to sell to multiple civs anyway, but I'll believe that when I see it.

lol ninja'd

Light Cleric said:

Yeah, I don't risk selling Borders unless the civ is waaaaaaaay far away. I really only do it in a borders-for-borders trade.

Also, the DoF thing for lump sumps means the ability to buy multiple Settlers could be gimped significantly. This really slows down the ability of Tradition to expand compared to Liberty which gets the free Settler + pumps more Settlers out faster. We'll have to see how things play out; I've heard the AI is supposed to be more diplomatic and less psychotic, meaning it might be manageable to sell to multiple civs anyway, but I'll believe that when I see it.

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KrikkitTwo said:

To get settler you must build or buy them...buying has been nerfed (takes longer to get the gold), building is buffed, Liberty has a boost to building Settlers (+1 free)

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Aha, I get it now. What you meant was that with a lack of more available gold to rush buy settlers, liberty will get up by virtue of providing a settler and speeding their build time. While it sounds that way IMHO having a power house (in terms of growth) capital is better than the single settler. If it was settler + something else (like citizenship which gives you a tile improvement speed build boost) it might have better IMHO. Then again all things considered policies will get an overhaul so we are all shooting a bit in the dark here

Thanks for taking the time explaining sirs!

pilot00 said:

I would agree on principle but there there is a mistake in your reasoning:
Once you reach a certain scientific thresh-hold (public schools) and unlock certain policies it becomes nearly impossible to be caught up. Then you become a scientific snowball. Yes if you make huge mistakes or stop your pace they will eventually catch up to you but, if you reach a level of where you are effectively double the science of your closest opponent (in terms of score), you are in a situation most likely to wipe him off the face of the earth by utilizing said science and bought units. Then you will most likely puppet said cities (with the exception of a couple to be used as staging ground) and in effect you will double (at least) your science output and gold. At this point if the rest of the world is not allied against you, its pretty much over. All these are observations made on multi and hotseat games.

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If this evaluation is correct - and I don't question that it is - then the problem is not with tech/era progression, but with Public Schools. What you list here are clear symptoms of Public Schools being overpowered (or conversely of later-era techs needed to be increased even further in cost).

kaspergm said:

If this evaluation is correct - and I don't question that it is - then the problem is not with tech/era progression, but with Public Schools. What you list here are clear symptoms of Public Schools being overpowered (or conversely of later-era techs needed to be increased even further in cost).

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Partly, what I am listing here is science been overpowered. A combination of fast growth and beelining the tech buildings (NC, Universities) along side rationalism, up to public schools creates a snowball effect in terms of tech. OFC you need the appropriate city and food infrastructure but thats what you are doing in the interim anyway. Once you are at this threshold only bad luck or grave mistakes can bring you down in my experience.

pilot00 said:

Partly, what I am listing here is science been overpowered. A combination of fast growth and beelining the tech buildings (NC, Universities) along side rationalism, up to public schools creates a snowball effect in terms of tech. OFC you need the appropriate city and food infrastructure but thats what you are doing in the interim anyway. Once you are at this threshold only bad luck or grave mistakes can bring you down in my experience.

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I would like to propose something interesting to give bee-liners a dilemma. In reality, rapid technological changes is often accompanied by turbulence and disturbance in society who has yet to adapt fully to sweeping changes. Indeed the speed of which the Industrial Revolution happen created massive societal problems from overcrowding in urban zones and loss of many employment. Marxism even came to root due to the sweeping change brought by rapid technological innovation.

Therefore i propose that any Civs who rapidly cross into different eras, would face public disorder and uprisings. In addition to unhappiness penalties, rebels groups would form. Left to ferment, these rebels would start pillaging productive tiles and grind cities to a halt. Given enough pressure from rebels, entire cities might flip over to revolution. The player therefore have to spend some effort in quelling unrest and also not to beeline further which itself would create another set of revolutions and unrest.

This will induce players to research more of other technologies in the same era before moving onto the next era if they dont want to risk rebellion and might somewhat mitigate the effects of running away through a pure scientific beeline.

Stellarnight said:

I would like to propose something interesting to give bee-liners a dilemma. In reality, rapid technological changes is often accompanied by turbulence and disturbance in society who has yet to adapt fully to sweeping changes. Indeed the speed of which the Industrial Revolution happen created massive societal problems from overcrowding in urban zones and loss of many employment. Marxism even came to root due to the sweeping change brought by rapid technological innovation.

Therefore i propose that any Civs who rapidly cross into different eras, would face public disorder and uprisings. In addition to unhappiness penalties, rebels groups would form. Left to ferment, these rebels would start pillaging productive tiles and grind cities to a halt. Given enough pressure from rebels, entire cities might flip over to revolution. The player therefore have to spend some effort in quelling unrest and also not to beeline further which itself would create another set of revolutions and unrest.

This will induce players to research more of other technologies in the same era before moving onto the next era if they dont want to risk rebellion and might somewhat mitigate the effects of running away through a pure scientific beeline.

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I see this as a problematic solution. It seems like you're being punished for doing something well. This is not fun and was one of the failings of civ5 at its initial release. "You built a wonder? Diplo hit. You built a city? Diplo and (large) happiness hit. You have a wincon? (i.e. You are actually playing this game?) Diplo hit.) Also, assuming you have a proper military you'd probably just be able to ignore the annoyance of hostile units popping up in your territory. If these units are actually worth avoiding then people will stop zooming through eras but this can be accomplished with a simpler implementation in the form of a rule along the lines of "X technologies must be reached in era Y before researching any techs in era Z." This would be a more surefire way of acheiving the same result without the inclusion of punishment/false choices.

That being said, I don't know if I'd be on board with the whole idea in the first place...

Babylon's bowman needs to get buffed somehow. Yes, the bowman is awesome for an archer, but composite bowmen come into play so quickly that the Babylonian bowmen never get a chance to shine.

Stellarnight said:

I would like to propose something interesting to give bee-liners a dilemma. In reality, rapid technological changes is often accompanied by turbulence and disturbance in society who has yet to adapt fully to sweeping changes. Indeed the speed of which the Industrial Revolution happen created massive societal problems from overcrowding in urban zones and loss of many employment. Marxism even came to root due to the sweeping change brought by rapid technological innovation.

Therefore i propose that any Civs who rapidly cross into different eras, would face public disorder and uprisings. In addition to unhappiness penalties, rebels groups would form. Left to ferment, these rebels would start pillaging productive tiles and grind cities to a halt. Given enough pressure from rebels, entire cities might flip over to revolution. The player therefore have to spend some effort in quelling unrest and also not to beeline further which itself would create another set of revolutions and unrest.

This will induce players to research more of other technologies in the same era before moving onto the next era if they dont want to risk rebellion and might somewhat mitigate the effects of running away through a pure scientific beeline.

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It is a decent idea with appropriate historical background to be sure, but I fear its implementation will suffer and have exactly the opposite effect (completely grinding research until you have enough happy buildings/army to quell the uprising).
IMHO they should viable alternates to science not grind it. For example faith could have been a very good alternate but it has not been implemented correctly.

I think they should add about 10 optional dead end techs to every age. This way once you get to the point where you have all the techs in the current age you can branch out to the dead end techs that give bonuses to existing units buildings etc.

Then I would lock the ages down so that you cannot start a new age until someone has completed all the "inline" techs in the previous age.

This would allow Bee-Lining in your current age but not allowing you to beeline too far ahead, to the point it is rediculous. It would also allow tech leaders to get boosts while the slower tech-ers are filling in the "inline" branches.

I think it is a better balance system than allowing fast tech-ers to race ahead then give the other players catch-up beakers so they can keep pace.

While a single Civ to declare a war is a simple task, doing it using partners needs a two step process.

You need to find out who will join in - a choice of three options will occur : No, wait 10 turns or immediately. Not a problem when you get immediate or 10 turns from all of them, but it can be an issue if you get 10 turns from the first and the second then decides on immediate.

So I would like to see a process where I can canvass the other Civs to see what they think, and then decide whether to declare war and whether there is a 10 turn delay, and possibly to be able to cancel the undeclared war before the end of the delay period.

You know, it's a funny thing about public schools.. I have had the experience of dominating at science because I was the first to buy and build them right into the industrial era but more often I've had the opposite experience of getting them and saying to myself, "well, I have a research agreement with the only friendly civ, I have public schools and a good amount of observatories and trading posts on jungles, I filled my scientist slots the whole game, I am about to finish rationalism for key techs... There is nothing else I can do to catch up."

That experience of having done all that I can is actually why I designed my idea exactly the way I did.

There are other factors that come into play in the game of course such as population, number of cities, particularly puppets, whether the puppets actually favored building science buildings, number of research agreements throughout the game (which in my proposal RA's would work more like they should which is to provide a temporary edge by getting a favorable lead into the next era), which policies you got and in what order, which wonders you got.. But in my version those would be temporary leads akin to to just having your culture buildings built in BNW. In order to win culturally in BNW you will presumably need to use some long term infrastructure but also a lot of short term, high-yield culture attacks and defenses in the right place at the right time.

My idea is that the last straightaway in the track is where the real race to win the tech victory "war" is, whereas all of the previous scientific jockeying for temporary leads was more of winning the battle. I definitely like some of the other science balance ideas that are coming up here!

A couple more ideas and responses...

UI Bug Fixes

How many of us have lost a Great Person because the symbol randomly disappeared and we didn't notice the unit was uncovered? Or had no idea an enemy unit was nearby because the UI didn't properly display its symbol? I had this annoying experience multiple times in my last few games, and I'm exasperated that this bug still hasn't been fixed since it was introduced in G&K. I want this fixed.

Science

Hulking Lummox said:

I am one of those people who favors a little more hang time to enjoy the tactics of each era. I still like for the balance between victory conditions obviously, I just favor a more fleshed out standard speed experience. My suggestion is for the progression into new eras to be slightly slower by halting vertical progress ...

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While I agree that it would be nice to spend a little more time in certain eras, the game is only 500 turns and someone working toward a Science Victory needs to be able to reasonably get there. Also, limiting the player's choices is the opposite of what Civ should be about (and frankly negative reinforcement is rarely good game design). Ultimately, I think the answer here is to play on less than Standard speed.

If we're worried about Science runaways, the new diplomacy options are going to be good tools for preventing that kind of runaway. Possibly tourism, too, by creating ideological unhappiness.

Peace Treaties & AI Undervaluation of Cities

Hulking Lummox said:

....When the AI accepts another AI's godawful peace conditions it can be far too absurd for the victor who can easily handle 2-4 high pop puppets no problem and thus instantly start down the path to being a runaway.

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I think this is in part a case of the AI undervaluing the worth of a city. Have you ever tried to trade a city to an AI? They'll give you practically nothing even for a great city on their borders. Maybe that's to avoid an exploit by the human, but even if you gift a city to the AI, it doesn't seem to apppreciate it much, and that's just darn bizzare.

Peace Treaties also present a problem. The AI's mechanism for calculating peace treaty offers is...bad (though better than it used to be). They only offer peace deals when they're about to damage one of your units, and the AI doesn't seem to take into account how many battles it's lost or how advanced their troops are (in promotions and tech), or even if it's lost cities to you (there's that city undervaluation again). It only counts its and your raw military numbers (which may be a carpet of obsolete units out of position) for its warchest. Because the AI can outspawn and maintain more units than the player, this can lead to a lot of unfair deals offered to the player and more than generous offers to other warlike AIs.

Peace Treaties should be more flexible. It should allow the players to determine their length, and in some cases should allow someone to demand the forced open borders or demilitarization of a warmongering AI.

Guided Missile Change

Hulking Lummox said:

Guided missiles do a large amount of bonus damage to garrisoned and fortified units. Automatically kills civilian units who are not covered by a military unit. Firing a guided missile at an unoccupied tile pillages ALL improvements (no gold received).

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I like these changes. As it is, non-nuke missiles are pretty useless to the human player.

Honor

kevytmaito11 said:

One thing i really hope for is buffing Honor some way.

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Honor got a slight nerf in G&K because barbarians are less prolific. Since they spawn at a lower rate, it's less easy to get culture off of Honor. Maybe a very slight buff is called for.

Still, the Honor tree when completed makes the completing Civ a military monster. And the ability to build Statue of Zeus only with Honor, as well as the ability to buy Great Generals when you need to snag additional resources or alter your positioning against a difficult AI with a citadel...Honor already is getting a buff.

Open Borders

Light Cleric said:

My proposal: move Open Borders back to Writing but reduce/eliminate the gold value the AI sees in buying your borders. This accomplishes the goal of removing the gold sink without the problem of being cut off.

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I really think there should be different levels of Open Borders. One that allows Scouts, exploration units and civilians through, and one that allows for military movement and assistance/occupation.

Babylon

NukeAJS said:

Babylon's bowman needs to get buffed somehow. Yes, the bowman is awesome for an archer, but composite bowmen come into play so quickly that the Babylonian bowmen never get a chance to shine.

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That unique unit should have been made a Composite Bowman UU in G&K. That is really what they were, historically. I can't for the life of me figure out why this change wasn't made.

I'd like to see more of an ebb and flow. Emphasis on "see". I think a lot happens to the other Civs that I cannot see. In a current Emperor game, Alexander has 464 GPT. The next best Civ has 20 GPT. How did he do this ? Lux trades, peace treaties ? No idea. I'd like to be able to see more of how AI is interacting with each other. If I waged a war with an AI partner, I want to see the impact they had. If another Civ doesn't have iron, make it easier for me to see.

In addition, the game does seem like a continuous build up. Generally I don't like placing restrictions on someone who is playing well. Personally I have a love hate relationship with random events. I'd like to see more of them, even if I might hate it when it happens to me. To my earlier point, if something is implemented, I want to be able to see its impact.