Balancing Economy Civics

The words "CIV is a war game" didn't came from me, they came from someone else. I think they're true though, because of what SpK said. Ofc. it's possible to play peacefully, but that just makes it more difficult and prolongues the game. When there is one area in which the human has the advantage, it's war, because the AI can basically only defend, it's not efficient at conquering and its build-up of troops is pathetic compared to what a human can do. In the other areas, the AIs perform quite well because of their bonuses though, so it's much harder to beat them there. Denying onesself the advantage in war, really sounds, like one would try to make the game more difficult for onesself. I'm also nervous before every war, but in the end and with good planning, I always find, that I just steamroll my opponents, not mattering what defenses they offer. The only thing that can force me to make peace, is, if an AI reaches Rifles while I attack it, that situation regularly makes me a little angry, but it only happens once every 5 games or so.

Change Beakers for Specialists from Representation to 2.
Give Police State +1 Espionage for Specialists.
Reduce Upkeep of Vassalage to Medium.
Add plus 10 percent Food in Capital from Bureaucracy, but half the production and commerce bonus. Also allow unlimited Artists, Scientists, Merchants and Spies.
Add plus 50 percent Great People Birth Rate from Free Speech.
Add plus 1 Hammer on Farms from Serfdom and remove plus 50 percent worker speed.
Remove Upkeep of Caste System, plus one hammer for workshops and unlimited Artists, Scientists and Merchants. Add plus one free Specialist in all cities and plus 25 percent worker speed.
Add plus 50 percent Great People Birth Rate for Emancipation.
Remove free specialist for Mercantilism. Add Half Distance from Palace Upkeep. Add plus 10 percent food, 20 percent production from Trade Routes.
Remove no distance maintenance from State Property, add half number of cities maintenance and unlimited Engineers. Increase Upkeep to High.
Add plus one beaker and 2 culture from Specialists with Environmentalism. Add plus one happiness for jungle and plus one food from Towns.
Add Unlimited Priests for Pacifism.
All default civics except Paganism bumped up to high upkeep and add plus one unhealth in all cities as well as plus ten percent upkeep in all cities each. Paganism bumped up to medium upkeep, otherwise unchanged.

Furthermore
Remove negative Food from Workshop initially, reintroduce it with Steam Power or Chemistry. Make Communism require whichever tech removes one food from Workshops.
Half extra commerce for Watermills from Electricity to plus one, move the other to Engineering.
Move Lumbermills to Mathematics. Give them plus one Commerce from Replaceable Parts.
Make Forest Preserves provide plus one food with irrigation, carry irrigation, and plus one commerce. Another plus one Commerce with Ecology.
All Processes, that is building Wealth, Research and Culture, only convert 50 percent of production.
Axemen reduced to 4 Strength. Muskets bumped up to 10 Strength. Cannons removed from Steel, instead require Rifling, Iron Working and Chemistry, however their strength is decreased to 10.
Rebalance all unique Units and Buildings so that a replacement is never worse than the thing it replaces, so e.g. Numidian Cavalry at least 6 strength, and that uniques get progressively better the later they are in the tech tree. The Mall for instance should give plus one free specialist for every town in the BFC, and Navy Seals ought to be able to paradrop and get the Commando Promotion for free.
Later religions should be better. Christianity and Islam, or the last two founded religions if Choose Religions is enabled, should be able to spread naturally to cities that already have a religion. The cost of the missionaries of all other religions should be doubled. In addition the shrines of Christianity and Islam or their equivalents with Choose Religions enabled should provide twice as much Gold as other shrines.

I suppose this is as good as any a time to mention that most of these changes or variations thereof are already implemented in my own modmod for Legends of Revolution which I have yet to publish.

So you make workshops overpowering throughout?
If i can get production without costing myself food(growth), no one will ever beat me,

And why would malls get specialists? Especially (potentially) many of them? One building is now as strong or stronger than most civics...

Most of these are not balances, they are making one path of development stronger...
I mean a forest preserve not only gives you happy, you are making it 3 and at least 3
Basically every city is an uber city with these changes....

I would go for wealth and such only being 50% conversion, as that is how vanilla has it.

and I would lower the cost of later missionaries, cause raising early ones just punishes you for trying to set up a religious empire or spread to neighbors. ..

SpK said:

So you make workshops overpowering throughout?
If i can get production without costing myself food(growth), no one will ever beat me,

And why would malls get specialists? Especially (potentially) many of them? One building is now as strong or stronger than most civics...

Most of these are not balances, they are making one path of development stronger...
I mean a forest preserve not only gives you happy, you are making it 3 and at least 3
Basically every city is an uber city with these changes....

I would go for wealth and such only being 50% conversion, as that is how vanilla has it.

and I would lower the cost of later missionaries, cause raising early ones just punishes you for trying to set up a religious empire or spread to neighbors. ..

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You would really work a 2F1H tile? Does that mean you never chop forests? Before Guilds Workshops are outperformed by Lumbermills, so they are really only overpowered between Chemistry and Steam Powered if the loss of food comes with the latter instead of the former.

That's the point. Because of snowballing later uniques have to be disproportionally strong to keep up with things like Praetorians. Also it only really has an effect if you spam cottages everywhere.

You don't really chop forests much, do you?

Sry, but those changes are way too complicated, it's impossible to say which effects they would have Imp. Knoedel. It's not about re-inventing the game, it's about making balance-changes to it.

Imp. Knoedel said:

You would really work a 2F1H tile? Does that mean you never chop forests? Before Guilds Workshops are outperformed by Lumbermills, so they are really only overpowered between Chemistry and Steam Powered if the loss of food comes with the latter instead of the former.

That's the point. Because of snowballing later uniques have to be disproportionally strong to keep up with things like Praetorians. Also it only really has an effect if you spam cottages everywhere.

You don't really chop forests much, do you?

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well i end up with 2 types of cities - the big cities, which I would not settle if they were in need of that much improvement - cottages or farm for GP is already plenty strong
- and the chop/whip cities which have no need for that many strong tiles - biology and workshops already make these strong if a game lasts that long

So working 2F1H never really comes into play, and chopping generally happens to help set up a city, I think that is normal, yes?


I like the fact that every location is not able to become an awesome city, having to fight for good land or settle for bad land keeps each game unique.


Snowballs and UU/UB - if workshops don't take food, I can run specialists and have good production in early game *in every city*, talk about a snowball... and I figure just like traits, UU are to give yourself different challenges, some civilization are better than others, some are just different, and even with Rome, there is nothing saying you have to Praetorian Rush. Personally i think Keshik are better on many maps, 2 moves regardless of terrain means my tactics are limitless


If you want to make later units more useful, start at an advanced technology age, that is why they let you choose starting era, no?

SpK said:

well i end up with 2 types of cities - the big cities, which I would not settle if they were in need of that much improvement - cottages or farm for GP is already plenty strong
- and the chop/whip cities which have no need for that many strong tiles - biology and workshops already make these strong if a game lasts that long

So working 2F1H never really comes into play, and chopping generally happens to help set up a city, I think that is normal, yes?


I like the fact that every location is not able to become an awesome city, having to fight for good land or settle for bad land keeps each game unique.


Snowballs and UU/UB - if workshops don't take food, I can run specialists and have good production in early game *in every city*, talk about a snowball...

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... You do know that you contradict yourself? First you say workshops that remove no food are overpowered, but now you say you wouldn't work them anyway before Guilds? And then you say you would get awesome production in the early game?

Food/growth and the whip out produces workshops which take away food.
If i can work workshops and still get 2 food from a square, I would be unstoppable. Cities can whip and still grow, whip and still build, work specialist and still build quickly. ...

As it stands early workshops are a direct trade of for - once you get bonus from other techs, they give even better return- but initially it is 1 to 1
Whipping is 1 to 2
it is already the strongest production mechanic in early game, now you want to make it better by adding production strength between whips for EVERY city?

So yes, as it stands, I choose food and whip, again, already the strongest early game production, why do you feel the need to make it stronger?

I should clarify "early game" imho is up to at least your first rush, which for most is elepult

SpK said:

Food/growth and the whip out produces workshops which take away food.
If i can work workshops and still get 2 food from a square, I would be unstoppable. Cities can whip and still grow, whip and still build, work specialist and still build quickly. ...

As it stands early workshops are a direct trade of for - once you get bonus from other techs, they give even better return- but initially it is 1 to 1
Whipping is 1 to 2
it is already the strongest production mechanic in early game, now you want to make it better by adding production strength between whips for EVERY city?

So yes, as it stands, I choose food and whip, again, already the strongest early game production, why do you feel the need to make it stronger?

I should clarify "early game" imho is up to at least your first rush, which for most is elepult

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If you do an elepult rush I doubt you have the time to research Metal Casting.

You are evading my question: Do you currently work forests before lumbermills? Because they provide the exact effect you fear from food neutral Workshops.

I have already answered, I whip, which means in the majority of my cities, no, no I do not...
And we also already covered the fact I chop, which means most cities don't have forest left...

Again, I say, if I can chop to get a city up fast, have food to grow, and STILL have production, I am unstoppable. Because this is not just one city, it is every city, I would alter my strategy to take advantage,
flood plains with production, non share helper city tiles, even city location would change

Same issue i have with the OP malls and preserves and other changes you want, you are making one path be even stronger, when it is already strong enough

balancing food, growth, production, and commerce is what makes the game fun and challenging. I am against anything which takes away from that... even HoF style starts from mapfinder...

So I take it you spam Watermills everywhere?

Imp. Knoedel said:

So I take it you spam Watermills everywhere?

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Hardly ever build them, actually. I aim most games for dom/con right from the beginning, so rarely get past cav, and whipping (farms) is usually the dominant improvement once I have secured enough and
mines and cottages also come into play, but I have many games where I never go down that tech tree much past BW

Now, that would change if early workshops don't cost me food, but like I said, that would be an early enough start to a snowball, i would change much of my current play style and growth plans

I am against adding a to farms from Serfdom for the same reason, and that would actually be stronger early production. Or your environmentalism adding a to towns, they already get OP in late game, although by that point making gold and buying units is faster, so the hammer is just even more icing on the cake...

Right now I can choose different strategy with different lengths of time until pay off, imho a lot of the strength of a given civic comes from adjusting your play to maximize the effect, so any changes just lead to the same cycle of altering play to maximize the civic you plan to utilize

A lot of what you seem to be trying to change is making more variety available earlier, but starting at a more advanced era already does that. ..