C2C Balance Thread

ls612

ls612

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This thread will be for discussing all things related to C2C balancing, including health/unhealth, Gold issues, Happiness and Unhappiness, and anything else related to making C2C a balanced mod that I haven't thought of.

Hopefully this will centralize the scattered balance discussions that are ongoing and make things a lot easier to keep track of.
 
So, since I started this thread, I might as well start the discussion in it with a hot button topic; REV.

Several people (Joseph, I'm looking at you) play with REV off for one reason or another. This is perfectly fine, except then there are some major balance issues. The main one is that many game options have instability as a downside, thus balancing their benefits. With REV off however, these downsides do nothing, leading to those options becoming overpowered (Slavery for instance).

How do you propose to handle this? My idea has been to convert instability to unhappiness on some ratio, but what other ideas are out there for this? How much compensating is necessary to balance things?
 
1st: Do you play any games with REV Off?

2nd: I Never use Slavery Ever. So if it's OP I wouldn't know anymore from My side of the game. Obviously the AI Does use it. And that is what needs attention.

3rd: I feel many of the Civics are too haphazard (sorry EldrinFall), but that's How I see them. Instead of a logical progression for each category you can have an early civic give +15% hammer and +50% more food needed. While the next "advanced" one eliminates the +15% Hammer and gives a +25 % more food to grow. So you lose 15% production for a 25% eduction in Food growth? Not even a good choice but one you end up taking because you need some pop in those cities by Ancient or Classical Eras. This is just a top of the head example. But it's something I wanted to say something about, but when the Civics got changed I hadn't had time to get in game practical use to say "Hey wait a minute" about it.

4th: It seems we are going Overboard to reduce gold/turn. I'll continue to stay on this bandwagon for some time to come. There are Other ways to balnce game play without being bankrupt most of the game. Cause Not Everyone plays On Emperor or above. And I'm "Damn tired" of upper level players making the game a tedium instead of Fun!

Enough opinion for now, I'm getting emotional instead of logical so I'll stop here for now.

JosEPh ;)
 
JosEPh_II said:
1st: Do you play any games with REV Off?

2nd: I Never use Slavery Ever. So if it's OP I wouldn't know anymore from My side of the game. Obviously the AI Does use it. And that is what needs attention.

3rd: I feel many of the Civics are too haphazard (sorry EldrinFall), but that's How I see them. Instead of a logical progression for each category you can have an early civic give +15% hammer and +50% more food needed. While the next "advanced" one eliminates the +15% Hammer and gives a +25 % more food to grow. So you lose 15% production for a 25% eduction in Food growth? Not even a good choice but one you end up taking because you need some pop in those cities by Ancient or Classical Eras. This is just a top of the head example. But it's something I wanted to say something about, but when the Civics got changed I hadn't had time to get in game practical use to say "Hey wait a minute" about it.

4th: It seems we are going Overboard to reduce gold/turn. I'll continue to stay on this bandwagon for some time to come. There are Other ways to balnce game play without being bankrupt most of the game. Cause Not Everyone plays On Emperor or above. And I'm "Damn tired" of upper level players making the game a tedium instead of Fun!

Enough opinion for now, I'm getting emotional instead of logical so I'll stop here for now.

JosEPh ;)
Click to expand...

1. I always play with REV on, it's more fun that way IMO.

4. How large of a standing army are you maintaining? That can really eat Gold like no ones business.

3. I agree with you that certain Civics are oddly designed. If you have specific ideas, post them in the Civics thread and I'll take a look at implementing said changes, as EldrinFal has been gone for a while.
 
1. So with out ever playing without Rev On how can you say that playing without it is unbalancing?
The main one is that many game options have instability as a downside, thus balancing their benefits. With REV off however, these downsides do nothing, leading to those options becoming overpowered (Slavery for instance).
Click to expand...
Couple this with Not using slavery as I do, what else does nothing? I don't see it. I think the game plays just fine without REV and Slavery and isn't unbalanced to be "too easy to play".
So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point, until we develop some commonality.

3. On the Civics again, some just have too much stuff in them. They adjust 10 things while another does 3.
Right now with the Crime added in I'm still using Beginning Civics in several categories because the Cost is overboard to advance to "better" ones and I'm at 1700AD for Christ's sake! It's costing me over 630+ gold a turn in Civic upkeep. If I used my normal Civics it would be costing me over 1K in gold per turn. Crazy Bad! And still we have Modders demanding we reduce gold even more??? Plain Nutzoid! Now couple this in with Inflation, another aspect of the game that has been taken overboard in the mad rush to curb that bad bad stuff called gold/turn (yes I'm getting sarcastic but it's driving me up the wall). It's a sign of a Healthy economy and Good game mechanics to have a couple hundred gold/turn while supporting a 60% research rate, plus a 10% Esp and a 10% Culture. But the ubber players/modders don't agree. So I stop building buildings that should be an integral part of the game, cause that's why they were added in to begin with. I have to be much more picky each turn. Which in itself means that it takes me More time to get a turn done. By the time I have 30 cities on a Giant map I might get 10 turns in a night. And I play on Epic level. Any slower and I'd never make it out of Classical Era before the Next version is put out. I'd like to finish a game sometime. Not drop it because so many New things have been added that sometimes destroys the option of continuing that game into the next version.

I think I'm starting to unload too much at one time and so I'll stop again.

JosEPh

4. My army is just big enough to keep my neighbors from invading. How can I tell? If the AI is massing troops on the border my SA isn't big enough. And it all depends on who the Neighbor is. I set the game up most of the time with Random for the AI players. So, for ex, If I play as Roosevelt, I almost Always get Shaka or Monte and those like them, war mongers.
 
JosEPh_II said:
2nd: I Never use Slavery Ever. So if it's OP I wouldn't know anymore from My side of the game. Obviously the AI Does use it. And that is what needs attention.
Click to expand...

I tried it once to see what was the fuss was about. However all other times I use Barter and then Coinage for early game. I personally like those better than Slavery.
 
@JosEPh: I think I *may* have found the problem, and it, like many others, lies in the GameSpeedInfos.

Basically, there is a tag there called iInflationPercent. Normal for that tag is a value of 27, but on Epic, which has 3 times as many turns as Normal, the value is 20! This would mean that by turn 1300 or so you would start experiencing ridiculous inflation that would continue for the rest of the game and drive your Civic upkeep through the roof. Does this sound like your situation? If it does I think I'll reduce it tomorrow, after V22 comes out. What say you?
 
All for it! I was blaming the gold reduction from the new Crime additions. Which may still be part of "My" problem with too little gold in the game.

JosEPh
 
ls612 said:
@JosEPh: I think I *may* have found the problem, and it, like many others, lies in the GameSpeedInfos.

Basically, there is a tag there called iInflationPercent. Normal for that tag is a value of 27, but on Epic, which has 3 times as many turns as Normal, the value is 20! This would mean that by turn 1300 or so you would start experiencing ridiculous inflation that would continue for the rest of the game and drive your Civic upkeep through the roof. Does this sound like your situation? If it does I think I'll reduce it tomorrow, after V22 comes out. What say you?
Click to expand...
Personally I think we should remove the inflation mechanic for several reasons:
  • It is an artificial mechanic
  • You get a permanent penalty for hurrying (and several other things like events)
  • It is calculated differently for humans than for AIs
  • It increases mainly dependent on the number of turns, not how far the game has progressed
  • If you are behind in the tech race, you will be hit harder by the increased costs (because you have fewer possibilities to get enough gold)
 
AIAndy said:
Personally I think we should remove the inflation mechanic for several reasons:
  • It is an artificial mechanic
  • You get a permanent penalty for hurrying (and several other things like events)
  • It is calculated differently for humans than for AIs
  • It increases mainly dependent on the number of turns, not how far the game has progressed
  • If you are behind in the tech race, you will be hit harder by the increased costs (because you have fewer possibilities to get enough gold)
Click to expand...

I think I would tend to agree. Those civics that currently increase or reduce inflation can instead just modify maintainance costs appropriately. Not sure inflation is really adding anythign to gameplay apart from unaddressable annoyance.
 
ls612 said:
@JosEPh: I think I *may* have found the problem, and it, like many others, lies in the GameSpeedInfos.

Basically, there is a tag there called iInflationPercent. Normal for that tag is a value of 27, but on Epic, which has 3 times as many turns as Normal, the value is 20! This would mean that by turn 1300 or so you would start experiencing ridiculous inflation that would continue for the rest of the game and drive your Civic upkeep through the roof. Does this sound like your situation? If it does I think I'll reduce it tomorrow, after V22 comes out. What say you?
Click to expand...

I agree with the above statements, go ahead and change them, then lets test it, and thx for finding that.;)
 
Wow! Thank God someone has actually agreed with what I've been trying to say. I've been on this Island too long.

Now there is a new problem with monasteries going defunct, when I was told they would only be reduced at a certain Era in the game, Not eliminated. I'm talking about the research side of monasteries.

JosEPh
 
JosEPh_II said:
Wow! Thank God someone has actually agreed with what I've been trying to say. I've been on this Island too long.

Now there is a new problem with monasteries going defunct, when I was told they would only be reduced at a certain Era in the game, Not eliminated. I'm talking about the research side of monasteries.

JosEPh
Click to expand...

Name me one recent scientific progress that was made in any monastery worldwide.
At some time they should become tourist attractions, archeaolical lab could get bonus if they are in city, rest of the :science: bonuses in my opinion are not suitable after the age of Mendel.

Cultural bonus of monasteries I think should stay but somehow depend on the civc (lower in secular societies).
 
DRJ said:
Name me one recent scientific progress that was made in any monastery worldwide.
At some time they should become tourist attractions, archeaolical lab could get bonus if they are in city, rest of the :science: bonuses in my opinion are not suitable after the age of Mendel.

Cultural bonus of monasteries I think should stay but somehow depend on the civc (lower in secular societies).
Click to expand...

Well NOW, I agree. But the first schools were 1000 years ago (albiet only attended by nobles, rather than the mass population), and monastries have been significant for at least half of the intervening time. They should phase out a lot more slowly than just going defunct at schools. I'd say maybe final phase out with compulsory education, first reduction with schools.
 
That's not a scientific progress considering how it wasn't used until after Mandelbrot anyway. In most likelihood it wasn't believed by contemporary scientist/monks either and really, didn't constitute a scientific progress.

Despite saying that I'm a firm believer of monasteries having helped out in some ways with the progress, regardless of it being scientific or not. Health, foundation of society, human group belongings, there are a myriad other ways that religions have helped humanity along however one looks at it.

And despite that I still think that for game purposes a slight reduction for Religion #2's monastery science output, a drastic reduction for Religion #3's monastery science output, and any monasteries beyond that not giving any scientific value at all.

But that's me, anything you all believe is fine to. I'm just playing the game and using what there is, or avoiding using it if I feel I get a too hefty bonus vs. AI's.

Cheers
 
DRJ said:
Interesting, ?
Click to expand...

I thought so too.
But generaly speaking: by quoting the exception of a rule you're proving it's veracity.
Click to expand...

Generaly speaking, people make advances, not the places they do it from, as they move from one center of learning to another the outputs of those locations change, is process not an event, of that change in outputs.
 
AIAndy said:
Personally I think we should remove the inflation mechanic for several reasons:
  • It is an artificial mechanic
  • You get a permanent penalty for hurrying (and several other things like events)
  • It is calculated differently for humans than for AIs
  • It increases mainly dependent on the number of turns, not how far the game has progressed
  • If you are behind in the tech race, you will be hit harder by the increased costs (because you have fewer possibilities to get enough gold)
Click to expand...

That's another good solution. I'm all in favor of it.
 
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