Counterproposal to: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/10-proposal-chieftain-difficulty-become-bonus-neutral.679015/
Note: I have a separate proposal to remove AI randomness for policy, tech and city production choice on all difficulty levels, which does not conflict with this one: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ifficulty-randomization-of-ai-choices.679135/
Current Status of Difficulty in VP
I have updated the guide for difficulty bonuses in VP (as they are currently) on the wiki for everyone's reference. Feel free to refer to it as you read this proposal to understand the changes.
civ-5-cbp.fandom.com
Problems With Existing Proposal
Making Chieftain bonus neutral without changing any other difficulty levels has problems with it.
As currently proposed, the human player would go from:
Settler: 13 Happiness, -20% Unhappiness from needs, 9 base unit supply, 30% unit supply from population, randomized AI decisions (top 3 choices)
Chieftain: 8 Happiness, -0% Unhappiness from needs, 7 base unit supply, 15% unit supply from population, no randomized AI decisions
Warlord: 11 Happiness, -10% Unhappiness from needs, 9 base unit supply, 25% unit supply from population, randomized AI decisions (top 3 choices)
This is very unintuitive, weird for newcomers, and just bad design, in my opinion.
In addition, it's not only the values above, but also the anti-warmonger fervor cap, which would be raised to +50% on Chieftain so that neither side has an advantage. If a Chieftain player can handle 50% anti-warmonger fervor, they probably should be playing at a higher difficulty level.
Problems This Counterproposal Aims To Resolve
The goals of my proposal is to make Vox Populi appeal to more segments of our target market, improve the general feel of the game, and to resolve the Barbarian issue. Thank you to @azum4roll and @Rekk for their early feedback on this proposal.
My Solution
The basic ideas of my proposal are to:
Keep in mind that while Warlord will be bonus neutral and Settler will be easier, Prince and King will each be a fairly big jump in difficulty. Emperor+ will feel roughly the same, minus the doom carpets and with the AI having to do a bit more work. But I think this new system will work well and I would like to give it a try.
Table of Revised Player Bonuses
For the current values, see "Current Status of Difficulty in VP" above. AI Players have their own difficulty level and receive all of the bonuses in that column no matter what difficulty humans are playing on. These bonuses are equal to those of a human player on Warlord.
Table of Revised AI Bonuses
For the current values, see "Current Status of Difficulty in VP" above.
Changes to Barbarians
New Difficulty Level Descriptions
Settler: "Beginner. The AI is at a significant disadvantage."
Chieftain: "Easy. The AI is at a slight disadvantage."
Warlord: "Normal. The AI is on equal footing with human players."
Prince: "Intermediate. The AI has noticeable bonuses."
King: "Hard. The AI has substantial bonuses."
Emperor: "Expert. The AI has large bonuses."
Immortal: "The AI has massive bonuses at all stages of the game. You have been warned!"
Deity: "Only the best players in the world will beat this level."
Randomization of AI Decisions (City Production, Policies, Techs)
This will depend on the results of my other proposal. Whether it passes or fails, it will have no effect on this proposal.
Integration of Alternate Difficulty Mod Columns
Regardless of whether this proposal is approved, I will add some (or maybe all) of the difficulty settings that Milae added for his Alternate Difficulty modmod, and may add a few on top of that. They will be disabled by default, but will add additional customizability for modders and players.
Amendments
- Barbarians can now spawn within line of sight, but not in tiles occupied by units, adjacent to units, or adjacent to city borders
- The initial spawning of Barbarian encampments will occur at the end of turn 2, not turn 0
- 1/8 of eligible tiles will spawn encampments for the initial spawning (down from 1/5)
- Chill Barbarians reduces spawn rate to one encampment every 3 turns
- Raging Barbarians increases spawn rate to one encampment every turn
Sponsorship
I sponsor this proposal.
Note: I have a separate proposal to remove AI randomness for policy, tech and city production choice on all difficulty levels, which does not conflict with this one: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ifficulty-randomization-of-ai-choices.679135/
Current Status of Difficulty in VP
I have updated the guide for difficulty bonuses in VP (as they are currently) on the wiki for everyone's reference. Feel free to refer to it as you read this proposal to understand the changes.
AI and Difficulty
The difficulty bonuses in the Community Patch are largely unchanged, but the rest of Vox Populi change difficulty bonuses greatly, as described below. The information listed below is accurate as of the 3.0.4 release version. When playing on difficulty levels higher than Warlord, the AI receives...
Problems With Existing Proposal
Making Chieftain bonus neutral without changing any other difficulty levels has problems with it.
As currently proposed, the human player would go from:
Settler: 13 Happiness, -20% Unhappiness from needs, 9 base unit supply, 30% unit supply from population, randomized AI decisions (top 3 choices)
Chieftain: 8 Happiness, -0% Unhappiness from needs, 7 base unit supply, 15% unit supply from population, no randomized AI decisions
Warlord: 11 Happiness, -10% Unhappiness from needs, 9 base unit supply, 25% unit supply from population, randomized AI decisions (top 3 choices)
This is very unintuitive, weird for newcomers, and just bad design, in my opinion.
In addition, it's not only the values above, but also the anti-warmonger fervor cap, which would be raised to +50% on Chieftain so that neither side has an advantage. If a Chieftain player can handle 50% anti-warmonger fervor, they probably should be playing at a higher difficulty level.
Problems This Counterproposal Aims To Resolve
- I know players who have struggled with the mod even on Settler and given up in frustration - which is not good for VP attracting newcomers. Let's call this group of players the "Newbie Segment".
- The idea behind the original proposal - a difficulty level where the AI and human are on equal footing, offering a game which is a pure test of skill - is one that a good number of people have requested. Let's call this group of players the "Fair Play Segment".
- The description for Deity doesn't use the epic "Only the best players in the world will beat this level." line, which is one of the very few things I liked about Firaxis's version.
- The Gold received from Barbarian camps ranges from 30 Gold on Settler to 15 Gold on Deity. Songhai's unique ability triples Gold from clearing encampments, and is the only UA that is directly worsened simply by playing on a higher difficulty level. In addition, getting 15 Gold from clearing a Barbarian camp just...doesn't feel very rewarding.
- There have been multiple complaints about Barbarians being irrelevant at every stage of the game, which is bad for Authority players. Recent testing and inspection of the code has revealed that there are three reasons for this: the high mobility of scouting units (as well as large amounts of AI units, sometimes with extra sight) is keeping too many tiles visible, there are several caps on the number of Barbarian encampments (on top of the restriction that they can't be created within 4 tiles of a major capital or another Barbarian camp), the spawning of camps on islands in the middle of the sea results in fewer Barbarians spawning in the middle of the sea. There is also a bit too much randomness in the spawning, in my opinion. More on this below.
- There are frequent complaints from players about AI players having endless carpets of units on higher difficulties, which makes war a major grind.
- AI players, even on difficulties as low as Prince, run out of things to build by midgame and spend all their time training units and working on processes. Not only does this drive up the Unhappiness median, but it doesn't feel fair or fun. The reason this happens is because the AI simply has too much Production with its instant yields combined with its discounts to Production costs. The instant Production from difficulty can also be applied towards World Wonders and World Congress Projects, which doesn't feel very fair or fun either.
The goals of my proposal is to make Vox Populi appeal to more segments of our target market, improve the general feel of the game, and to resolve the Barbarian issue. Thank you to @azum4roll and @Rekk for their early feedback on this proposal.
My Solution
The basic ideas of my proposal are to:
- Make Settler difficulty even easier than it already is, for the Newbie Segment.
- Make Chieftain difficulty roughly equivalent to current Settler (still providing some challenge, with an edge over the AI), for the Newbie Segment.
- Make Warlord difficulty bonus neutral, with neither human players nor the AI having any advantages over each other, for the Fair Play Segment. Note that "bonus neutral" does not mean no bonuses, but rather that humans and the AI will have equal bonuses.
- Make Prince and King the "ramp up" difficulties, two halfway points between Warlord and Emperor. They will each be substantially more challenging, and are for players who want to build up their skills (the Learners Segment).
- Keep Emperor, Immortal and Deity at about the same level of difficulty, for players who like a challenge (they are the Challenge Seekers Segment).
- Make the Gold from clearing a Barbarian encampment consistent at 50 Gold, scaling with era, regardless of difficulty.
- Remove the caps on Barbarian encampments, allow them to spawn in visible tiles (but not adjacent to city borders/units) and make some other adjustments (explained in more detail below).
- Remove the AI's total unit supply % bonus, to make wars less grind-y and more tactical on higher difficulties. They will still have production bonuses (so they can produce units quickly) and XP bonuses (so their units will be more effective), but they will not have as much ability to produce doom carpets. On higher difficulties they will have slightly more base and population % unit supply than humans, but that is much less than a 25-35% bonus to their total unit supply.
- Remove the instant Production yield that AI players get from difficulty. It does not need replacement, in my opinion; AI players already have substantial Production discounts, so this is double-dipping. This also prevents AI players from getting a direct advantage to World Wonders and World Congress Projects, which should allow higher difficulty players more chances to obtain those Wonders.
Keep in mind that while Warlord will be bonus neutral and Settler will be easier, Prince and King will each be a fairly big jump in difficulty. Emperor+ will feel roughly the same, minus the doom carpets and with the AI having to do a bit more work. But I think this new system will work well and I would like to give it a try.
Table of Revised Player Bonuses
For the current values, see "Current Status of Difficulty in VP" above. AI Players have their own difficulty level and receive all of the bonuses in that column no matter what difficulty humans are playing on. These bonuses are equal to those of a human player on Warlord.
Spoiler :
Table of Revised AI Bonuses
For the current values, see "Current Status of Difficulty in VP" above.
Spoiler :
Changes to Barbarians
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
New Difficulty Level Descriptions
Settler: "Beginner. The AI is at a significant disadvantage."
Chieftain: "Easy. The AI is at a slight disadvantage."
Warlord: "Normal. The AI is on equal footing with human players."
Prince: "Intermediate. The AI has noticeable bonuses."
King: "Hard. The AI has substantial bonuses."
Emperor: "Expert. The AI has large bonuses."
Immortal: "The AI has massive bonuses at all stages of the game. You have been warned!"
Deity: "Only the best players in the world will beat this level."
Randomization of AI Decisions (City Production, Policies, Techs)
This will depend on the results of my other proposal. Whether it passes or fails, it will have no effect on this proposal.
Integration of Alternate Difficulty Mod Columns
Regardless of whether this proposal is approved, I will add some (or maybe all) of the difficulty settings that Milae added for his Alternate Difficulty modmod, and may add a few on top of that. They will be disabled by default, but will add additional customizability for modders and players.
Amendments
- Barbarians can now spawn within line of sight, but not in tiles occupied by units, adjacent to units, or adjacent to city borders
- The initial spawning of Barbarian encampments will occur at the end of turn 2, not turn 0
- 1/8 of eligible tiles will spawn encampments for the initial spawning (down from 1/5)
- Chill Barbarians reduces spawn rate to one encampment every 3 turns
- Raging Barbarians increases spawn rate to one encampment every turn
Sponsorship
I sponsor this proposal.
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scaling from camps is actually a pretty significant boost to Authority/mobile civs (Aztec/Iro/Songhai/Celts etc.) Maybe not unwarranted but I think 30
