Bad feature that needs to go: the slider

Probably just wishful thinking on my part, but I'd sure like to see this go away. In the current implementation, all commerce is pretty much the same. What's the difference between and when you can just move the slider a little to compensate? Same for which is always set to 0 unless it is set 100 (when finishing a cultural victory). Same argument for . Right now, if I need , then I build a library and shift the slider from 90 to 80 (or whatever I need at the time). I think it would add a lot more flavor if you had to manage , , , and (if it's in) somewhat separately. Then you would have to decide which of these was really critical at a given time and build/research accordingly.

Pazyryk said:

Probably just wishful thinking on my part, but I'd sure like to see this go away. In the current implementation, all commerce is pretty much the same. What's the difference between and when you can just move the slider a little to compensate? Same for which is always set to 0 unless it is set 100 (when finishing a cultural victory). Same argument for . Right now, if I need , then I build a library and shift the slider from 90 to 80 (or whatever I need at the time). I think it would add a lot more flavor if you had to manage , , , and (if it's in) somewhat separately. Then you would have to decide which of these was really critical at a given time and build/research accordingly.

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Researching/building different things for , , , and is managing them separately.
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Not to mention assigning specialists....I wouldn't mind finer gradations on the slider, though - maybe 5% increments instead of 10. Then there's the whole "slider for the whole nation vs. each city having a focus" debate...

I'm not sure if this aspect can be done realistically. In reality, most technical advances happened "by accident". Directed research is a thing from recent history.

So a more realistic example for a system would be:

- Base commerce from tiles and trade as it was
- The base commerce would be added randomly to techs of the current era, making it random which you get first
- If you have buildings like librararies, those extra % can be directed to basic flavours of research, like military or religious techs.
- Later you get the ability to research specific techs (universities and labs)

- for money (gold per turn), you can tax the base commerce, or build markets
- spionage comes from spy buildings, and culture from culture buildings
- later techs allow shifting of GPT towards other fields





I guess you wouldn't want this overly realistic system, would you? It restricts your gameplay choises too much!


@robostar: 5% steps would be great! is that moddable in civ 4?

I just never got why Culture and technology traded off with each other. It's not like the artists and the scientists would be the same people.

its been so long since i played on-modded civ4 i forget what it was like lol.

i generally play Rise of Mankind with A New Dawn and the sliders go by 5% increments, so yes its moddable.

Pazyryk said:

What's the difference between and when you can just move the slider a little to compensate?

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The difference is quite big as and are then multiplied by different buildings.

Robo-Star said:

Researching/building different things for , , , and is managing them separately.
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Exactly!

David7 said:

I just never got why Culture and technology traded off with each other. It's not like the artists and the scientists would be the same people.

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And in fact they don't...
You have a total income and you can spend it on science culture and espionage, the amount you do not spend goes into your treasury.
If you have your research set to 100% you obviously can't have culture set to say 50%... because you can't invest 150% of what you earn.

@Tomice
Its in the GlobalDefines, under COMMERCE_CHANGE something or other.

Remember never to edit the original files!

Newcomer24 said:

And in fact they don't...
You have a total income and you can spend it on science culture and espionage, the amount you do not spend goes into your treasury.
If you have your research set to 100% you obviously can't have culture set to say 50%... because you can't invest 150% of what you earn.

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Yes, but sometimes you can be at 100% and still be making coins, so you would earn enough...

mechaerik said:

@Tomice
Its in the GlobalDefines, under COMMERCE_CHANGE something or other.

Remember never to edit the original files!

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COMMERCE_PERCENT_CHANGE_INCREMENTS, to be precise. Yes, I have mine set to 5.

Each 5% (assuming that is what you change it to) change to culture will increase your happy citizens by one, but your theaters will still need a 10% change to add an additional one in Civ4.

David7 said:

Yes, but sometimes you can be at 100% and still be making coins, so you would earn enough...

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just like you can be at 0% and still be making beakers...

I always assumed the slider was meant to represent funding.

Changed it! Thx!

So, 5% for one happy face? I hope it's always one per 5%, not one per slider position?

Don't want to cheat with this...

David7 said:

I just never got why Culture and technology traded off with each other. It's not like the artists and the scientists would be the same people.

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I always interpreted it not so much as a "government reassigning labor" but more of a cultural focus. You being the "invisible force" guiding the civilization are simply altering the social consciousness towards a specialization. So the years where my culture slider was higher than my science slider represents an era where the people were more captivated by art & culture than science and knowledge.

Make sense?

OK, I might be repeating myself from the original post (or just stating the obvious), but here is why I hate the slider in more detail:

It should matter and have long term consequences if I build too many libraries/universities and not enough marketplaces/banks. In this scenario, my empire should be failing from lack of revenue even while technology is moving at a brisk pace. But it doesn't work this way because of the slider. Yes, there are reasons to build library over marketplace (or visa versa) but they have everything to do with the current slider setting and nothing to do with need for research versus tax revenue. Really, have you ever been in a situation where you have excess research but insufficient revenue?

Consider two types of buildings, %modifier buildings and direct addition (eg, +2 buildings):

#1. The decision to build a +25% building versus a +25% building has nothing to do with whether you need to develop science or revenue. If I'm near 100% on the slider, then the +25% building is always the right choice. Better to get +25% on (and maybe bump the slider down to 80% research) than to get 25% of 0 . But this is totally stupid. You shouldn't build libraries to raise revenue! but that is exactly what you do in civ because of the slider.

What if you are close to 50/50 research/tax on the slider? Well then the +25% building and the +25% building are exactly equivalent. Build either and tweak the slider to 60/40 for a turn or two. It makes no difference at all.

#2. Now compare a +2 building with a +2 building. With the slider, it most likely doesn't make much difference at all. If you are running 80/20 research/tax, build either one and tweak the slider for one turn. It only makes any difference if you are maxed out 100/0 on the slider (which does happen, I admit).

Culture and espionage work a little different, but that is only because you spend most of the game with these set to 0 on the slider. However, if you are running 20/80 tax/culture, then a +2 building is almost exactly equivalent to a +2 building (with some slider management).

My point is that funneling all commerce through the slider pretty much makes , , , all the same thing. Want a cultural victory? Just build up commerce and set the slider to 100% (wonders? why bother?). Need more revenue? Move the slider. Need espionage? Move the slider. Need science? Move the slider.

It's just taking what should be 4 different game elements gold:) and making them essentially interchangeable (not totally interchangeable, but almost). I don't build a library thinking "this will cost the taxpayer but increase public education." Instead I think, "my slider is 100% so the +25% modifier works with my current slider setting whereas +25% doesn't do anything right now. If I'm short on revenue I'll just build the library anyway and bump the slider to 90/10."

So it just becomes a slider management game, with no need to make any hard choices between research or revenue. OK, there is a choice. But the choice is all in the slider (which can be changed instantly at need) and picking buildings to exploit that slider setting.

Really, just imagine that you want a cultural victory but don't have access to a slider. Currently, all I do is develop commerce and then (at some point) set the slider to 100% culture. What if, instead, you had to build cultural buildings and wonders for a cultural victory? (I'm not saying they aren't helpful in the current game. I'm just saying that the slider is overwhelmingly more important.) What if building libraries versus marketplaces had a differential effect on research versus revenue that you couldn't instantly fix with the slider? It would make building decisions much more important, with long-term consequences. This would make the game harder, I guess (which might not be what folks want). But this is what I mean in the original post when I suggested that should have to be managed separately, rather than all through the slider.

The slider is a just crutch.

I wouldn't mind if they replaced the slider with the more city focused style that is in Civ Revolution. Each city should be able to focus on either research or commerce instead of every city having to contribute the same percentage.

I like the slider! It's a simple, clean and brilliant system for controlling your economy.

For me the slider worked great in Civ4 vanilla/warlords a simple three way balance between economy, research and culture. Not terribly realistic, but very effective gameplay.
Unfortunately I felt it jumped the shark when they added the espionage slider in BTS. Seriously the major budgetary decisions of the day are between economy, research, culture and espionage. It felt like espionage was one of the themes of the EP so they had to put it in your face as a new slider. Espionage funding should be a second class decision (ideally hidden and modeled) not a first class decision playing a significant role in your economic balance like the others.
If you had to add 4th slider there are so many better choices that are more or just as closely tied to core playing styles:

• Add a military slider, let me balance the others with the training and/or readiness of my armed forces, and reduce the upkeep in exchange for a reduction in effectiveness.
• Add a diplomacy slider that lets me control the effectiveness of my foreign service, with diplomatic events, bonuses and penalties for good/poor funding, (espionage belongs in this bucket).
• Add a religion slider that lets me promote/support and/or deemphasize my state religion (when I have one), affecting the rate of spread, access to missionaries and diplomatic +/- with other civs.

So, in summary, the slider should either be moved back to its original task, a balance between the big three gold:,,), or expanded as a gameplay device to include other important systems as long as the added items are of the same importance, i.e. please don't mix first class and second class decisions in the same management tool.

I like it how it is now, and with 5% changes instead of 10% would be really good.

I'm not sure if this aspect can be done realistically. In reality, most technical advances happened "by accident". Directed research is a thing from recent history.

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True, but in civ we, as leaders, have much, much more control over every aspect of our nations than was realistic for the leaders we portray. Just another one of those tradeoffs that sacrifices realism for better gameplay.

One thing that always bugged me is that you cannot run your science above 100%. Why? I've got all this money sitting around in the treasury and I'd like to pump it into my research!