3.8 Non-Congress Changes Discussion

[pineappledan]

Patch 3.8 contains a handful of bug fixes and changes that have balance impacts that were never discussed in Congress. This is the thread to discuss those changes and vote on them.

@Recursive has indicated he is willing to hotfix or alter these changes without waiting for next congress.

Spoiler “Byzantium Founder change” :

Founders General - Multiple Founder National Wonders (Byzantium only) now stack their Religious Authority votes with each other

Clarification:
If Byzantium adopts a 2nd founder belief he can build 2 different reformation wonders in her holy city. Reformation wonders do the following:
Access to a reformation belief(does not stack)
Some base yields
Maybe some other small bonus (eg great altar gives % military unit production in the city)
+25% passive pressure in this city
+5 yield to holy sites on empire
1 WC vote for every 10 cities following your religion

Byzantium has always been able to build 2 founder wonders, but the WC vote effect did not stack. The recent change fixed the ability so the effect stacks additively. This means that if Byzantium builds 2 reformation wonders they get 1 vote for every 5 cities while other founders get 1 per 10.

There are 3 potential actions I see, but I don’t see the current state of Byzantium’s bonus belief as stable enough to be “gold” with this new steroid. founders have been much, much stronger than other belief types for a long time, but doubling byzantium’s access to WC votes pushes them over the edge:
- block Byzantium from building 2 reformation wonders. I’m the future, Nerf founders back into line with the power of other belief types
- block Byzantium from adopting a 2nd enhancer, Pantheon or Follower as her bonus belief. They are already blocked from adopting 2 reformations, and founders are so much stronger than the other options that the UI is crowded with bad options that just make the obvious choice harder to find. There is no point in giving players and AI access to wrong choices.

Spoiler “Border Growth Modifier change” :

- Instant yield border growth (from Culture or BGP) from all sources is now increased by border growth rate modifiers Modifiers include Monuments, God of the Expanse, etc. Instant Culture must be awarded to a city for it to receive the bonus, of course

Clarification:
- 2 congresses ago border growth bonuses from monuments, Angkor Wat, etc were changed from tile cost reductions to yield modifiers.
- Russia’s UA was kept as a tile cost reduction.
- There was 1 pre-existing border growth modifier prior to the change: fealty’s Fiefdoms policy (+100% during WLTKD).
- The stated reason for making this change was because separate sources of cost reduction scale multiplicatively with each other, and made tile claims too fast when combined.
- A secondary effect of this change is that tile cost reductions augment sources of instant yields while yield modifiers do not. This was not mentioned when the original proposal was tabled.
- instant sources of Culture still contribute to border growth, but they weren’t being multiplied by the effect of monuments etc. this has minor ramifications for things like progress and authority’s early border expansion, because they get instant From tech unlocks and unit kills.

This change has minimal balance effects either way. This is more of a vote as to whether you think that border growth should behave like every other yield modifier, whether the rules should be respected, or whether border growth should be its own animal.

Spoiler “Conquistador penalty change” :

- Fixed the Conquistador being immune to the unhappiness and war weariness cost penalties that other Settler units have

Military unit production penalties and settler penalties are similar, but settler ones are a little more punishing in most cases. This change makes conquistadors cost more to build if your empire is unhappy.

This vote depends on whether you think that conquistadors should be treated as settler units, or if you think they should be treated as military units that just happen to have a settler-like ability

 

[Recursive]

There are 3 potential actions I see, but I don’t see the current state of Byzantium’s bonus belief as stable enough to be “gold” with this new steroid. founders have been much, much stronger than other belief types for a long time, but doubling byzantium’s access to WC votes pushes them over the edge:
- block Byzantium from building 2 reformation wonders. I’m the future, Nerf founders back into line with the power of other belief types
- block Byzantium from adopting a 2nd enhancer, Pantheon or Follower as her bonus belief. They are already blocked from adopting 2 reformations, and founders are so much stronger than the other options that the UI is crowded with bad options that just make the obvious choice harder to find. There is no point in giving players and AI access to wrong choices.

Or we could simply prevent her from having two Founders.

I'm going to revert the Conquistador change.

 

[Rekk]

- 2 congresses ago border growth bonuses from monuments, Angkor Wat, etc were changed from tile cost reductions to yield modifiers.

As a clarification, it was not implemented as a yield modifier. That is, it does not use the Building_YieldModifiers table like the Power Plants, etc. do. New columns were created in the Buildings table called BorderGrowthRateIncrease (Monument) and BorderGrowthRateIncreaseGlobal (Angkor Wat), as well as one in the Beliefs table called
BorderGrowthRateIncreaseGlobal (for God of the Expanse, looks like it was misnamed as it only affects the rate in the city itself, not exponentially with each city).

 

[Recursive]

God of the Expanse says "+34% faster Border Growth". Either it's +34% faster Border Growth or it's not. I changed the ability to match the text.

as well as one in the Beliefs table called
BorderGrowthRateIncreaseGlobal (for God of the Expanse, looks like it was misnamed as it only affects the rate in the city itself, not exponentially with each city)

It's named Global because it applies to all cities in the empire that have the pantheon.

 

[Rekk]

It's named Global because it applies to all cities in the empire that have the pantheon.

That's how all city-level beliefs work. "Global" is used when an effect applies to all cities, for each instance of the ability. Very powerful, almost always limited to wonders.

God of the Expanse says "+34% faster Border Growth". Either it's +34% faster Border Growth or it's not. I changed the ability to match the text.

You changed Monument and Angkor Wat to say "faster Border Growth" from "reduces the cost of acquired tiles". God of the Expanse already had "faster Border Growth" before the reimplementation, but it too was reducing tile cost like monument and Angkor Wat (and so was not congruent with the other texts).

This is what @azum4roll proposed:

Monument, Stele and Ger increase BGP in the city by 34%.
God of the Expanse increases BGP globally by 34%.
Angkor Wat increases BGP globally by 50% (it's a world wonder after all).
Russian UA stays the same, but the text needs to be changed to clarify that it's a cost reduction. This will be the only border growth cost reduction in VP, and makes Russia and Mongolia no longer share a unique component.

It's touted as a border growth point yield increase.

 

[Recursive]

That's how all city-level beliefs work. "Global" is used when an effect applies to all cities, for each instance of the ability. Very powerful, almost always limited to wonders.

I'll rename the table for consistency then.

 

[Little Billy]

block Byzantium from building 2 reformation wonders. I’m the future, Nerf founders back into line with the power of other belief types

Why would having the founder beliefs be much stronger than other types not be desirable? You need to have a major payoff for the effort of founding a religion, no?

 

[Rekk]

Why would having the founder beliefs be much stronger than other types not be desirable? You need to have a major payoff for the effort of founding a religion, no?

Founders get a Founder belief and an Enhancer belief (and parts of a Reformation belief) that non-founders do not get. That, ostensibly, is your payoff.

 

[pineappledan]

Why would having the founder beliefs be much stronger than other types not be desirable? You need to have a major payoff for the effort of founding a religion, no?

The founder beliefs are much, much stronger than the followers, pantheons, and enhancers. Even ignoring the reformation wonders, which are now even stronger, the yield rates on founder beliefs are all at least 2 times more than what you could get from any non-founder belief. There is no reason you would ever not want a 2nd founder belief, they are simply better. So, why even offer those other beliefs as options for Byzantium's bonus belief? To improve the bonus belief mechanic, 1 of 2 things needs to happen:

1. Change the power balance of all beliefs so that Pantheons, Founders, Followers, and Enhancers are all relatively close in power to each other
   • This is a lot of work, but very doable. Pretty much just numbers tweaks to lower the value of founders, which are the main standout.
   • founding civs already get the benefit of founders, enhancers, and reformations that non-founders don't get. They also get to choose their religion beliefs, they also get religious bonuses sooner than non-founders.
   • Founders also benefit from general religion mechanics, like getting more % tourism modifiers, WC votes, and having tools to manage religious unhappiness that non-founders don't have access to.
2. Remove the underpowered options, leaving only the strongest beliefs available to be picked.
   • The current situation with Byzantium's bonus belief is that you always pick a founder, and all the other belief options in the list are ignored. The problem is there are more than 50 beliefs to choose from, but only 9 of them are worth picking. This is overwhelming for new players, it's hidden information, it's tedious scrolling to scroll through, and it's a potential impediment to the AI. Giving Byzantium more WC votes if they pick a founder has exacerbated this imbalance, but it has existed for a long time.

I think both approaches are valid. Option #2 is a lot less work to implement. If we nerfed founders, we might have to also buff other aspects of religion back up, or make other parts of Byzantium's kit stronger to compensate. If we decide that it's fine that founders aren't balanced vs followers etc. then Byzantium should just get a 2nd option of whatever belief type is the strongest. That change is not mutually exclusive with changing it so 2 Reformation wonders can't be built.

 

[Recursive]

The founder beliefs are much, much stronger than the followers, pantheons, and enhancers. Even ignoring the reformation wonders, which are now even stronger, the yield rates on founder beliefs are all at least 2 times more than what you could get from any non-founder belief. There is no reason you would ever not want a 2nd founder belief, they are simply better. So, why even offer those other beliefs as options for Byzantium's bonus belief? To improve the bonus belief mechanic, 1 of 2 things needs to happen:

1. Change the power balance of all beliefs so that Pantheons, Founders, Followers, and Enhancers are all relatively close in power to each other
   • This is a lot of work, but very doable. Pretty much just numbers tweaks to lower the value of founders, which are the main standout.
   • founding civs already get the benefit of founders, enhancers, and reformations that non-founders don't get. They also get to choose their religion beliefs, they also get religious bonuses sooner than non-founders.
   • Founders also benefit from general religion mechanics, like getting more % tourism modifiers, WC votes, and having tools to manage religious unhappiness that non-founders don't have access to.
2. Remove the underpowered options, leaving only the strongest beliefs available to be picked.
   • The current situation with Byzantium's bonus belief is that you always pick a founder, and all the other belief options in the list are ignored. The problem is there are more than 50 beliefs to choose from, but only 9 of them are worth picking. This is overwhelming for new players, it's hidden information, it's tedious scrolling for no reason, and it's a potential impediment to the AI. Giving Byzantium more WC votes if they pick a founder only exacerbates this imbalance even more.

I think both approaches are valid. Option #2 is a lot less work to implement. If we nerfed founders, we might have to also buff other aspects of religion back up, or make other parts of Byzantium's kit stronger to compensate. If we decide that it's fine that founders aren't balanced vs followers etc. then Byzantium should just get a 2nd option of whatever belief type is the strongest. That change is not mutually exclusive with changing it so 2 Reformation wonders can't be built.

Option 3: Keep founder beliefs powerful, change Byzantium's ability to not allow a second founder and either buff it in another way or change the UA to something else.

 

[Jozrael]

Vastly prefer option 2 for founders.

 

[pineappledan]

As a clarification, it was not implemented as a yield modifier. That is, it does not use the Building_YieldModifiers table like the Power Plants, etc. do. New columns were created in the Buildings table called BorderGrowthRateIncrease (Monument) and BorderGrowthRateIncreaseGlobal (Angkor Wat), as well as one in the Beliefs table called
BorderGrowthRateIncreaseGlobal (for God of the Expanse, looks like it was misnamed as it only affects the rate in the city itself, not exponentially with each city).

As a clarification to the clarification to the clarification:
BorderGrowthRateIncrease is a new column that was added, but it was originally implemented to act identically as the pre-existing BorderGrowth % rate increase ability, Fiefdoms, which had never included instant yields in its modifier before.

 

[hokath]

Option 3: Keep founder beliefs powerful, change Byzantium's ability to not allow a second founder and either buff it in another way or change the UA to something else.

This is the obvious solution to me. It doesn't really make sense to have two founder beliefs to me.
Also, the vanilla usage was usually to do something like get 3 different religious buildings to get extra value from Sacred Sites, for example. Not a second founder.

 

[Little Billy]

Imo the option to nerf founders in order to fix Byzantium's "lack of information clarity" issue is smuggling in a completely unrelated balance change for the sake of fixing a decidedly non-balance related issue. To my knowledge, no one is complaining about founder beliefs being overpowered right now, either by themselves or in relation to other things, and Byzantium's potential to do well in games would not be affected by this change apart from forcing the player toward what is considered to be the optimal decision. And the question of "how powerful should founder beliefs be in relation to the other beliefs" is only relevant in the first place because of Byzantium's UA. Otherwise, your choice is not "should I get a founder belief or a different belief", it is "should I spend the effort to found a religion".

If we do block Byzantium from picking 2 founders, I would also suggest removing pantheons from the list too for the same reason.

 

[Stalker0]

Or we could simply prevent her from having two Founders.

Yeah this seems far simpler than "forcing" byz to pick 2 founders.

 

[Enginseer]

For Byzantium's Reasoning why they had this changed:

Imo the option to nerf founders in order to fix Byzantium's "lack of information clarity" issue is smuggling in a completely unrelated balance change for the sake of fixing a decidedly non-balance related issue. To my knowledge, no one is complaining about founder beliefs being overpowered right now, either by themselves or in relation to other things, and Byzantium's potential to do well in games would not be affected by this change apart from forcing the player toward what is considered to be the optimal decision. And the question of "how powerful should founder beliefs be in relation to the other beliefs" is only relevant in the first place because of Byzantium's UA. Otherwise, your choice is not "should I get a founder belief or a different belief", it is "should I spend the effort to found a religion".

If we do block Byzantium from picking 2 founders, I would also suggest removing pantheons from the list too for the same reason.

Pantheons are already discouraged by the AI picker for Byzantium's bonus belief. They had a preference for a Founder and an Enhancer in general as their bonus beliefs.

 

[pineappledan]

Added "block Byzantium from picking 2 founders" as a poll option

Option 3: Keep founder beliefs powerful, change Byzantium's ability to not allow a second founder and either buff it in another way or change the UA to something else.

This is the obvious solution to me. It doesn't really make sense to have two founder beliefs to me.

Yeah this seems far simpler than "forcing" byz to pick 2 founders.

Why do you think that's the best choice?

Blocking being able to pick 2 founders would be a significant nerf to Byzantium, while blocking pantheon/follower/enhancer does not affect balance. Byzantium seems to be at a fairly good power level as it is right now, so nerfing them like that would require some significant compensation.

It's also quite a bit cleaner to describe:

Current UA
Can always found a Religion, receives 1 Additional Belief when founding, and may select Beliefs present in other Religions. -15% Faith purchase costs, and may purchase unlocked Great People starting in the Classical Era.

Founders Only
Can always found a Religion. Can choose 2 Founder Beliefs when founding, and may select Beliefs present in other Religions. -15% Faith purchase costs, and may purchase unlocked Great People starting in the Classical Era.

No Founders
Can always found a Religion. Can choose 1 Additional Pantheon, Follower, or Enhancer when founding, and may select Beliefs present in other Religions. -15% Faith purchase costs, and may purchase unlocked Great People starting in the Classical Era.

Imo the option to nerf founders in order to fix Byzantium's "lack of information clarity" issue is smuggling in a completely unrelated balance change for the sake of fixing a decidedly non-balance related issue.

The sentiment that religions are too powerful in general has been longstanding within some parts of the community, myself included. The chasm between founders and non-founders is extremely large. Nerfing religion in general could start by nerfing the power of the strongest beliefs, Founders, down to the level of the other types. Less "smuggling" and more "2 birds with 1 stone"

 

[Jozrael]

Still feels like smuggling when that's not expressly stated. I like founding feeling powerful, for one.

 

[azum4roll]

Can always found a Religion, receives 1 additional non-Founder Belief when founding, and may select Beliefs present in other Religions. -15% Faith purchase costs, and may purchase unlocked Great People starting in the Classical Era.

I have a feeling that blocking Reformation is just to help the AI (since reformations are usually useless at the time of founding). We can always re-allow that and teach the AI to weigh it better.

 

[myclan]

I think THE Border Growth Modifier change have a big effect on early game. Monuments provide 2 culture, with +34% faster Border Growth, it become 2.68, but still counted as 2. So it doesn't work unitl you can get at least 3 culture per turn.

I will suggest Monuments work like Smokehouse to +1 extra Border Growth Points,while Smokehouse +34% faster Border Growth