Game balance issues list

A list of the current values and where tweaks should probably be made (IMHO).

Terrain Tiles:

1F 0P 1G Coast
0F 0P 0G Desert
2F 0P 0G Grassland
0F 2P 0G Hills
0F 0P 0G Ice (unpassable)
0F 0P 0G Mountain (unpassable)
1F 0P 1G Ocean
1F 1P 0G Plains
0F 0P 0G Snow
1F 0P 0G Tundra

- Coastline needs the 10% combat modifier back to differentiate it from Ocean. For a real change of pace, the combat modifier should be (10% times number of neighboring land tiles). So a nearly land-locked piece of coastline could have up to a +50% combat modifier. But a coastline on the tip of a peninsula would only have a 10% bonus.

- Grassland should have no combat modifier, nor should Plains. That would give a better scale between fighting on open ground (fairly simple) vs fighting in bad terrain like Tundra/Snow/Desert or setting up in good terrain like Hills. Or the combat modifier should be scaled back to -10% or -15% compared to the current -33%.

Features:

-3F -3P -3G Fallout (a.k.a. the crater)
+2F Flood Plains
=1F =1P Forest (always 1F/1P regardless of underlying until chopped)
+1F -1P Jungle (turns into 1F 1P 0G Plains when chopped)
-1F Marsh (-33% combat)
+3F +1G Oasis (-33% combat)

- The manual says +2F for flood plains, but the game seems to only give out +1F. This should be reverted to give +2F for flood plains.

- Rivers are a special case feature. They give +1G to neighboring tiles.

Bonus Resources:

+1F Bananas
+1F Cattle
+1F Deer
+2F Fish
+1F Sheep
+1F Wheat

- Cattle, Sheep, Wheat should all be boosted to +2F.

- Fish should be boosted to +3F. The reason is that it's difficult to defend sea resources, so there should be a larger reward.

Luxury Resources:

+2G Cotton
+2G Dyes
+2G Furs
+3G Gems
+2G Gold
+2G Incense
+2G Ivory
+2G Marble
+2G Pearls
+2G Silk
+2G Silver
+2G Spices
+2G Sugar
+1F +1G Whales
+2G Wine

- Gold, Silver should be boosted to +3G instead of +2G.

- Furs should give +1F just like whales.

- Ivory should give +1P.

- Luxury resources should give +5 for the first one and +2 for additional not traded away (add +2/+1 for each map size larger then the small size). So +5/+2 for Small, +7/+3 for Standard, +9/+4 for Large and +11/+5 for Huge.

Strategic Resources:

+1P Aluminum
+1P Coal
+1P Horses
+1P Iron
+1P Oil
+1P Uranium

- Oil should give +1G in addition to +1P, with a bigger bonus if improved.

- Coal and Uranium should be +2P

- Horses should give +1F/+1P without being improved

- Strategic resources are useful right now, but not special. If they gave slightly bigger tile boosts, then they become even more interesting as something to fight over.

Resource Improvements

(nothing) Camp
(nothing) Fishing Boat
(nothing) Oil Well
(nothing) Pasture
(nothing) Plantation
(nothing) Quarry

- Oil well should boost an additional +2P and +2G

- Pasture should give +1F

- Plantation should boost +2G

- Quarry should boost +1P

- Fishing boat should give +1F

Tile improvements

+1P Lumber mill
+1P Mine
+2G Trading Post
+1F Farm

- Lumber mill should be +2P not +1P, otherwise putting up a trading post takes preference due to the power of gold in Civ5.

- Mine should be boosted to +2P to be competitive with trading posts

There's a lot of times right now where a trading post is the obvious choice, especially on forest plains where you can get either a measly +1P from lumber mill or +2G from a trading post. Farms could probably also be boosted to +2F - because you're going to be limited by your happiness cap anyway.

- Railroads reportedly only give a +3 increase to movement compared to the +2 of roads. This should be boosted to +4.

- It's better to build units then disband them for money then to set a city to produce gold.

- City state bonuses scale with # of player cities, this makes certain city states like the Maritime C/S extremely powerful since they give +food to every city in your empire. This calculation needs to be looked at. It will need to say something like +30 food, divided by the # of cities you have, rounded down with a minimum of +1F per city (on a large map where 20 cities is not uncommon) and a maximum of +4F or +5F per city if you only have a small handful.

- Luxury resources should give +5 for the first one and +2 for additional not traded away (add +2/+1 for each map size larger then the small size). So +5/+2 for Small, +7/+3 for Standard, +9/+4 for Large and +11/+5 for Huge.

Click to expand...

That may be a bit overpowered on Large/Huge. The "additional" bonus may need to top out at +3 for each luxury resource that you have access to. So

+5/+1 for Small (and under)
+6/+2 for Standard
+7/+2 for Large
+8/+3 for Huge

Following up on that, there is a Social Policy that gives +happy for each additional luxury resource that you have access to. But it's only a +1 bonus, and fairly deep in the mercantilism tree. That bonus should probably be +2 or +3 once you take that social pick.

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussions. Game balance issues such as these are certainly design decisions made by the developers. I suggest you discuss then in general discussions, or perhaps even get a modder to mod these in (or do it yourself).

Edit - though the point about building units and disbanding, rather than building wealth is a good one, so I left a copy of that in bug reports, and added it as a suggested improvement.

WuphonsReach said:

- Fish should be boosted to +3F. The reason is that it's difficult to defend sea resources, so there should be a larger reward.

Click to expand...

I don't agree. They are also more seldom attacked. I think the current on fish is fine.

WuphonsReach said:

- Luxury resources should give +5 for the first one and +2 for additional not traded away (add +2/+1 for each map size larger then the small size). So +5/+2 for Small, +7/+3 for Standard, +9/+4 for Large and +11/+5 for Huge.

Click to expand...

Great idea, but I would say that they should decrease the initial shot on the basis that overall you still want cities to be small. But I do think there should be more of a bonus for resources than just trade. That said, maybe the goal of giving extra resources no benefit is to encourage us to trade more.

WuphonsReach said:

- Strategic resources are useful right now, but not special. If they gave slightly bigger tile boosts, then they become even more interesting as something to fight over.

Click to expand...

I also think they should yield fewer units. I always have a surplus in strategic resources once I have acquired any at all. Maybe this changes on harder game modes? But strategic resources are only a limiting factor for me when I have zero. I never use more than a couple of horses in a game, certainly never four.

WuphonsReach said:

- Lumber mill should be +2P not +1P, otherwise putting up a trading post takes preference due to the power of gold in Civ5.

- Mine should be boosted to +2P to be competitive with trading posts

There's a lot of times right now where a trading post is the obvious choice, especially on forest plains where you can get either a measly +1P from lumber mill or +2G from a trading post. Farms could probably also be boosted to +2F - because you're going to be limited by your happiness cap anyway.

Click to expand...

Disagree. A single hammer is worth 3-4x as much as a single gold. Also disagree re: food. It's fun that there's a choice whether to grow or produce, and making food too easy to come by eliminates my interest in that tradeoff.

Lack of distance costs mean that there's basically no penalty to putting your cities 20-40 tiles apart on the larger maps. The only downsides are:

- you'll have to build a road for your trade network, or simply build harbors
- not easy to move units from location to location to shore up sagging defenses

I see a few ways that distance costs could be implemented:

- There should be an impact for being away from the capital

A flat unhappiness or maintenance cost hit of -1 happy or +5% costs for every 10 tiles away from the capital. Water tiles should count as 1/2 tile for distance.

- There should be a modifier based on the distance to the closest N cities

On a large map, if you have a group of 5 cities within 10 tiles of each other, maybe there shouldn't be an unhappiness modifier. But leave the cost modifier in.

- You shouldn't be able to build using a strategic resource at a city unless a trade network exists to bring that resource to you.

WuphonsReach said:

Farms could probably also be boosted to +2F - because you're going to be limited by your happiness cap anyway.

Click to expand...

they already are - after civil civil service riverside farms, after fertilizers otherwise. IMO many of the bonuses you propose are too much (though agree with the premise that many should be +1 boosted, after the respective improvement is built on them), and I certainly oppose removing combat penalties from flatlands.

WuphonsReach said:

Lack of distance costs mean that there's basically no penalty to putting your cities 20-40 tiles apart on the larger maps. The only downsides are:

- you'll have to build a road for your trade network, or simply build harbors
- not easy to move units from location to location to shore up sagging defenses

I see a few ways that distance costs could be implemented:

- There should be an impact for being away from the capital
.....

- You shouldn't be able to build using a strategic resource at a city unless a trade network exists to bring that resource to you.

Click to expand...

I generally disagree, because road maintenance costs + trading route income already do give effectively a city distance maintenance cost - you could just tweak these numbers if something feels wrong. It's also basically free for overseas colonies, a welcome change (when geography and tech allowed it, maritime empire were frequent, for long travel is so easier by sea), and as a mechanism is generally less heavy-handed. You propose an entirely new additional mechanism

However, this last idea sounds interesting. Maybe no resources in general should be available to the empire until (one of the) city(s) whose tile has it is connected to the trading route of the empire? That would be a large incentive to build those trading routes, and pay the effective city maintenance in road.

.. will need to say something like +30 food, divided by the # of cities you have, rounded down with a minimum of +1F per city (on a large map where 20 cities is not uncommon) and a maximum of +4F or +5F per city if you only have a small handful.

Click to expand...

yes they need to be nerfed and it would be better if they functioned in a way that is less penalizing to a small empire, like the approach!

I think your ideas WuphonsReach are fantastic. Every suggestion you have made I would like to give the to.

All I know for certain is that on a Large/Fractal map, as currently coded and balanced... I'm not having fun. I'm either having to put trading posts down everywhere or else I can't afford the rent on those city states. And the happiness buildings cost so much that I'm constantly short on cash from that end as well.

So I'm looking at the big picture and wondering what can possibly be changed.

I think my major complaint about food resources is that they don't produce a feeling of greed/envy in Civ5. In Civ4, resource tiles were better, especially when improved. When you saw that there were resource tiles just a few hops away, you desired them or were envious of your neighbor if they had them. You would go specifically out of your way to nab them.

But in Civ5, since all the bonuses and improvements have been scaled back, it's a lot more "meh". Especially since there are a lot of cases where a regular river-side farm or farm on grass can produce as much as a wheat tile on plains. I don't feel the joy in capturing food resource tiles in Civ5, because they're just not great.

(I'm amused that greed and envy play a part in making 4X games enjoyable. I want more then what I already have, or I want what my neighbor has.)

maybe also give +1 for food resources, so there's a bit more happiness in the game, and also so you can trade them? Maybe instead of giving happy bonus for extra untraded luxuries, for that discourages trade. And trading around say bananas makes real life sense. Not sure if either of these is as trivial to change though.

I also agree with lower strategic resources quantities given by a single source, maybe to 2.

EDIT:
did you notice there's a (for now bit hackish) mod increasing yields of improved resources? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9663524&postcount=12
also increases hammer to gold ratio when building gold, so apparently it solves your other bugreport

Haven't played enough to comment on tile balancing issues, but had a few comments:

WuphonsReach said:

- Fish should be boosted to +3F. The reason is that it's difficult to defend sea resources, so there should be a larger reward.

Click to expand...

Fish generally aren't that hard to defend, actually. The city bombard aside (assuming the resource is within 2 tiles of the city), you could just position an archer near the resource.

Also, like slowjames said, they're not attacked as often.

There's a lot of times right now where a trading post is the obvious choice, especially on forest plains where you can get either a measly +1P from lumber mill or +2G from a trading post. Farms could probably also be boosted to +2F - because you're going to be limited by your happiness cap anyway.

Click to expand...

Yeah, trading posts do seem to be a tad too strong, especially once you get the upgrade that adds research.

Well, I find some civs a little underwhelming. I mean, who wants to play as anything but Babylon/Germany by now? India, my favorite Civ, has been reduced to a stinking pile of fertilizer.

I understand your suggestions, but they aren't good for this game.

You already get +1 add. food on farms with civ service and fertilizer. Further, allying with maritime city states almost always kicks my empire into hurried happiness acquisition. Just saying between food buildings, the improved available food plots and city states I can turn a veritable desert/hills city into a size 11-13 by 1700AD, then with all that production, usually 50ish from the hills+buildings+policies, or pretty good gold/science income in desert with solar, trading posts, etc

You already get +production bonuses from the policy track/buildings' bonuses. Actually I never have the production problems people write about in these threads. I honestly think they're mowing down all their forests, putting farms on hills and never building workshop/factory/power stations.

Income's rarely an issue for me, same as production. I think people are completely avoiding trading posts, or can't find the merchant specialist slots. Money bonus buildings like market, bank, etc are the only ones without maintenance.

Your suggestions would just be too much. Also they would over-value workers.

And india doesn't suck, Raneman. Half unhappiness for population is pretty huge, I usually don't build past colloseum, if at all, until I have 9+ cities. That's a pretty significant deal and the elephants, while early, are pretty nice if you get 4 or 5, and they're fast.

Wheat doesn't really need a boost. The reason being that you put a farm on wheat to harvest it unlike all other resources, which is much, much better than what you put on other stuff once you upgrade them through techs.

Raneman said:

Well, I find some civs a little underwhelming. I mean, who wants to play as anything but Babylon/Germany by now? India, my favorite Civ, has been reduced to a stinking pile of fertilizer.

Click to expand...

I kind of think india has potential, and gonna try it on my next civ game.

With city states (at least on standard+ maps) you can go seriously crazy with population, currently i stopped allying last two maritime ones cause im starting to run out of happiness ( and i dont have almost any farms ) due to population. With india you could go on and on.

And if you manage to secure Forbidden palance, and get Planned Economy trait, you get 2x Unhappiness reduced from nr of cities - and your can go city spamming too.

With that combo you basically can have twice the population compared to any other nation. ( And probably never need to build single happiness building - except maybe for huge maps )

I agree on a lot of your points.

I'm liking the game right now, but I see a lot of room for improvement. I just played a large map, and I had to spam trading posts to pay for my happiness buildings. The lack of control on growth is insane, too. Just adding my two cents.

Oh, and when I discovered it was cheaper to create units & disband them to make money, I was disappointed. That needs to be fixed.

WuphonsReach said:

Lack of distance costs mean that there's basically no penalty to putting your cities 20-40 tiles apart on the larger maps. The only downsides are:

- you'll have to build a road for your trade network, or simply build harbors
- not easy to move units from location to location to shore up sagging defenses

I see a few ways that distance costs could be implemented:

- There should be an impact for being away from the capital

A flat unhappiness or maintenance cost hit of -1 happy or +5% costs for every 10 tiles away from the capital. Water tiles should count as 1/2 tile for distance.

- There should be a modifier based on the distance to the closest N cities

On a large map, if you have a group of 5 cities within 10 tiles of each other, maybe there shouldn't be an unhappiness modifier. But leave the cost modifier in.

- You shouldn't be able to build using a strategic resource at a city unless a trade network exists to bring that resource to you.

Click to expand...

No.

NO!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

No thank you sir.



None of this on my plate please.

The reasons to be careful with a distant city are already in the game by the nature of the idea- as you mentioned- no defense, trade is over seas. That's enough.