Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options.
All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72
Discussion Thread: (7-72) Change How "Purchase Cost Reduction" Abilities Work
Proposer: @azum4roll
Sponsor: @azum4roll
Proposal Details
Part of the "stacking discounts is evil" series.
Currently, there are multiple sources of purchase cost reduction that reduces the
Gold cost of investing in buildings and buying units (and projects, if enabled):
A Venice player can get a whooping -80% off of all gold purchases in the capital and -75% in the rest. You may say this is synergy, but I can only see imbalance when a single component (Industry scaler or Stock Exchange) may contribute in doubling the value of Gold used for purchasing (which is ~1/4 of gold spent for the AI, according to @L. Vern; very likely higher for humans).
EDITED: @axatin clarified that the local and global modifiers actually stack multiplicatively with each other. Correcting the above paragraph (point still stands).
A Venice player can get a whooping -66.25% off of all gold purchases in the capital and -64% in the rest. You may say this is synergy, but I can only see imbalance when a single component (taking the Industry tree) may contribute in raising the value of Gold by ~50% when used for purchasing (which is ~1/4 of gold spent for the AI, according to @L. Vern; very likely higher for humans).
We already have precedence of changing stuff like this in Border Growth. We can do something similar here:
Discounted cost = Base cost / (1 + Sum of effectiveness modifiers)
Implementation:
Add new column HurryEffectivenessModifier to Building_HurryModifiers, Building_HurryModifiersLocal, and Policy_HurryModifiers tables, default 0.
Expected bugfix (not part of the proposal):
Make the local and global modifiers stack additively as expected.
Conveying to players:
Should be no different, since currently the formula on purchase cost isn't shown on the UI.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72a
Discussion Thread: (7-72a) Change How "Purchase Cost Reduction" Abilities Work - Industry Scaler Alternative
Proposer: @Anarcomu
Sponsor: @azum4roll
Proposal Details
Original proposal (summed up):
Most cost reduction (excluding -33% to unit from Autocracy, and -25% to building from Order) are change to "purchase effectiveness".
Formula :
Discounted cost = Base cost / (1 + Sum of effectiveness modifiers)
Affected bonuses :
Proposal :
Industry Opener and Scaler is +10% efficiency instead of +5%.
Rational :
As pointed out by @pineappledan, the industry base and scaler is too huge of a nerf. Since everything else is very good, I just change this part.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72b
Discussion Thread: (7-72b) Purchase Cost Discounts from Different Sources Stack Multiplicatively
Proposer: @axatin
Sponsor: @axatin
Proposal Details
As pointed out in the OP, additive modifiers are an issue because their combined effect can be too strong. However, the proposed replacement ability "gold costs are more effective" cannot be understood without knowledge of a formula which is impossible to guess or derive from the description. We shouldn't replace an effect that's easy to understand with something obscure. Currently there's a wild mix of additive and multiplicative modifiers (see spoiler below), and a better solution to the problem would be to make all modifiers from different sources stack multiplicatively and to change the descriptions accordingly.
Proposal:
Global modifiers from buildings, global modifiers from policies, and local modifiers all stack multiplicatively. Rialto district is changed from "-10% purchase cost in all cities, -15% in capital" to "-15% purchase costs in all cities". That's a slight buff, but it compensates for the fact that Rialto doesn't stack additively with stock exchanges and industry any longer.
As a result, we have the following sources of purchase cost reductions that stack multiplicatively:
- Stock Exchange (local building)
- Forbidden Palace and Rialto (global buildings)
- Industry (policy)
The Industry policies still stack additively with each other, as would be expected. The only other possible source of additive modifiers is the combination Forbidden Palace and Rialto District, which is unlikely to occur.
The description for Industry stays as it is: "-5% Gold needed for purchases." That's the typical way additive modifiers are described in Civ 5.
The description for the Stock Exchange is changed to "Purchasing Items in this City requires 20% less Gold". That description makes it clear that the modifier stacks multiplicatively with any other modifiers that might be in effect. The same wording is also used for the other buildings.
This also makes it consistent with how the modifiers to building costs only and to unit costs only are handled: Both of them already stack multiplicatively with the general modifier.
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options.
All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72
Discussion Thread: (7-72) Change How "Purchase Cost Reduction" Abilities Work
Proposer: @azum4roll
Sponsor: @azum4roll
Proposal Details
Part of the "stacking discounts is evil" series.
Currently, there are multiple sources of purchase cost reduction that reduces the
Gold cost of investing in buildings and buying units (and projects, if enabled):- Forbidden Palace: -15% global
- Industry: -30% global in total
- Stock Exchange: -20% local
- Rialto District: -10% global, -5% local
Gold used for purchasing (which is ~1/4 of gold spent for the AI, according to @L. Vern; very likely higher for humans).EDITED: @axatin clarified that the local and global modifiers actually stack multiplicatively with each other. Correcting the above paragraph (point still stands).
A Venice player can get a whooping -66.25% off of all gold purchases in the capital and -64% in the rest. You may say this is synergy, but I can only see imbalance when a single component (taking the Industry tree) may contribute in raising the value of
Gold by ~50% when used for purchasing (which is ~1/4 of gold spent for the AI, according to @L. Vern; very likely higher for humans).We already have precedence of changing stuff like this in Border Growth. We can do something similar here:
- Forbidden Palace: Gold is +20% more effective on building investment and unit purchase in all Cities.
- Slightly better compared to now if not stacked with other sources, worse after Stock Exchange
- Industry Opener and Scaler: Gold is +7% more effective on building investment and unit purchases.
- Around the same as now, if not stacked with other sources
- Stock Exchange: Gold is +25% more effective on building investment and unit purchase in this City.
- Same as now, if not stacked with other sources
- Rialto District: Gold is +15% more effective on building investment and unit purchase in all Cities (+25% in
Capital).- Better numbers to compensate for some of the lost "synergy". Obviously nowhere as close if you grab everything.
Discounted cost = Base cost / (1 + Sum of effectiveness modifiers)
Implementation:
Add new column HurryEffectivenessModifier to Building_HurryModifiers, Building_HurryModifiersLocal, and Policy_HurryModifiers tables, default 0.
Expected bugfix (not part of the proposal):
Make the local and global modifiers stack additively as expected.
Conveying to players:
Should be no different, since currently the formula on purchase cost isn't shown on the UI.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72a
Discussion Thread: (7-72a) Change How "Purchase Cost Reduction" Abilities Work - Industry Scaler Alternative
Proposer: @Anarcomu
Sponsor: @azum4roll
Proposal Details
Original proposal (summed up):
Most cost reduction (excluding -33% to unit from Autocracy, and -25% to building from Order) are change to "purchase effectiveness".
Formula :
Discounted cost = Base cost / (1 + Sum of effectiveness modifiers)
Affected bonuses :
- Forbidden palace : -15% cost => +20% efficiency
- Industry Opener and Scaler : -5% cost => +7% efficiency
- Stock Exchange: -20% cost => +25% efficiency
- Rialto District: -10% cost (-15% in capital)=> +15% efficiency (+25% in capital)
Proposal :
Industry Opener and Scaler is +10%
efficiency instead of +5%.Rational :
As pointed out by @pineappledan, the industry base and scaler is too huge of a nerf. Since everything else is very good, I just change this part.
VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 72b
Discussion Thread: (7-72b) Purchase Cost Discounts from Different Sources Stack Multiplicatively
Proposer: @axatin
Sponsor: @axatin
Proposal Details
As pointed out in the OP, additive modifiers are an issue because their combined effect can be too strong. However, the proposed replacement ability "gold costs are more effective" cannot be understood without knowledge of a formula which is impossible to guess or derive from the description. We shouldn't replace an effect that's easy to understand with something obscure. Currently there's a wild mix of additive and multiplicative modifiers (see spoiler below), and a better solution to the problem would be to make all modifiers from different sources stack multiplicatively and to change the descriptions accordingly.
Proposal:
Global modifiers from buildings, global modifiers from policies, and local modifiers all stack multiplicatively. Rialto district is changed from "-10% purchase cost in all cities, -15% in capital" to "-15% purchase costs in all cities". That's a slight buff, but it compensates for the fact that Rialto doesn't stack additively with stock exchanges and industry any longer.
As a result, we have the following sources of purchase cost reductions that stack multiplicatively:
- Stock Exchange (local building)
- Forbidden Palace and Rialto (global buildings)
- Industry (policy)
The Industry policies still stack additively with each other, as would be expected. The only other possible source of additive modifiers is the combination Forbidden Palace and Rialto District, which is unlikely to occur.
The description for Industry stays as it is: "-5%
Gold needed for purchases." That's the typical way additive modifiers are described in Civ 5.The description for the Stock Exchange is changed to "Purchasing Items in this City requires 20% less
Gold". That description makes it clear that the modifier stacks multiplicatively with any other modifiers that might be in effect. The same wording is also used for the other buildings.This also makes it consistent with how the modifiers to building costs only and to unit costs only are handled: Both of them already stack multiplicatively with the general modifier.
Spoiler Current modifiers :
