Are there too many GAP sources in VP?

[pineappledan]

I’m thinking about the current state of Golden Ages in VP and I have come to the conclusion that they are too easy and come too fast.

One quick change we could make is to raise the base cost or scaling of GAs, but I think the biggest problem is that we have way too many sources of Golden age points in VP.

Back in vanilla, the main way of earning points towards a GA was excess happiness. There were pretty much no instances of GAPs themselves distributed as a regular yield. Meanwhile, we have the artistry tree in VP that gives something like 18GAP per city per turn. We have a few civs that can achieve a permanent golden age starting in Renaissance with little effort, and most civs canstart getting perpetual golden ages by late game simply by picking Artistry/Freedom

So I wanted to check the temperature of the community on this. Do you think Golden Ages are too easy, and that there are generally too many sources of Golden Age Points distributed throughout the game?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Yes, I totally agree with you.

Although I think that just simply increasing the threshold would be sufficient enough, as opposed to a bunch of balance changes and making the yield borderline extinct.

 

[Anarcomu]

Also, I don't know if Brazil is considered strong or not, but increasing the threshold won't change their UA, whilst reducing yield across the board would.

 

[looorg]

There is something weird with it for sure. I can't recall a game I played in the last probably year(s) that doesn't end in more or less perpetual golden ages -- when one ends a new one just begins again since it stores the overflow while you are in the golden age. You see it by looking in the tooltip as the next golden age starts in a negative amount of turns; as you in you already have enough GAP accumulated to kickstart a second golden age. If you can't stop the accumulation while you are in a golden age I guess the only real viable solution will be scaling the cost of the golden ages. That might solve part of that issue but it might just lead to little gaps in the golden ages and it won't actually solve the problem.

But as with so many things it's probably a matter of scales -- if there are just enough cities or sources whatever they might be the GAP will accumulate. So cutting the accumulation while an idea might not work or can be trivially countered as it might just require that you get a few more cities, kill a few more units, expand a few more great people or whatnot.

The main golden age issue tho is that you don't want it to come to early as your gain will be almost nothing. There is that very early, and common, event that ask if you want a few hundred GAP or +1 happiness for some turns. You always pick the happiness. Picking the GAP is always the wrong choice, with one exception -- the once that get some extra trigger from golden ages -- but even for those civs it's usually better to wait a little.

 

[saamohod]

The thing is that for some reason late-ish Great Artists give ridiculous amount of Golden Age Points. The number may reach tens of thousands of GAP, therefore bulbing a single GA often provides a Golden Age that lasts until the end of the game.

 

[pineappledan]

Overall Brazil is ranking 10th.
Korea is 12th
Persia is 32nd

Brazil is the only 1 of the 3 hardcore GA civs that doesn’t have an inbuilt source of GAPs. There’s also Aztecs, but their bonus is a full, separate GA trigger, so that seems like it’s unaffected, or would maybe be even stronger if GAs are less common for everyone else.

 

[andersw]

The thing is that for some reason late-ish Great Artists give ridiculous amount of Golden Age Points. The number may reach tens of thousands of GAP, therefore bulbing a single GA often provides a Golden Age that lasts until the end of the game.

More great persons (or was it themed persons) means more GAP and in late eras you likely have a decent stack.

 

[saamohod]

More great persons (or was it themed persons) means more GAP

Definitely. However my point is that it does look unbalanced. Late game Golden Age Points are too bloated.

 

[CppMaster]

Shouldn't cities put penalty on golden ages threshold, just like they or put penalty on tech and policy costs?

 

[Legen]

The thing is that for some reason late-ish Great Artists give ridiculous amount of Golden Age Points. The number may reach tens of thousands of GAP, therefore bulbing a single GA often provides a Golden Age that lasts until the end of the game.

That's because they get a 20% yield increase for every themed set in your empire. If you kept building cultural wonders and filling your themes, you end with highly powered artists. That makes theming a very strong mechanic in the lategame.

 

[Anarcomu]

I don't think that's the biggest problem, simply taking artistry is enough for me to enter perma golden-age is the late game without ever spending a great artist.

 

[azum4roll]

Shouldn't cities put penalty on golden ages threshold, just like they or put penalty on tech and policy costs?

There's a 1% increase per non-capital city (counts puppets).

The Great Artist bulb should be nerfed.

Current bulb amount = last 10 turns of and generated * (1 + 20% * number of themed Great Work set)

 

[ZetaLambdaNinja]

I have regularly had games where I've gotten permanent golden ages. It doesn't happen with every civ/strategy I pursue, but getting to permanent golden ages doesn't seem like an exceptional thing, which tells me it's too frequent.

 

[saamohod]

The Great Artist bulb should be nerfed.

Only in the mid-late to late game. GA bulb starts producing unbalanced numbers somewhere in Modern Era. First 2/3 or 3/4 of the game feel balanced in this regard.

 

[azum4roll]

Only in the mid-late to late game. GA bulb starts producing unbalanced numbers somewhere in Modern Era. First 2/3 or 3/4 of the game feel balanced in this regard.

That's when your number of themed works explode (from Archaeology). It shows that we need to nerf the scaler then.

 

[statusquo]

Also, I don't know if Brazil is considered strong or not, but increasing the threshold won't change their UA

Brazil is the only 1 of the 3 hardcore GA civs that doesn’t have an inbuilt source of GAPs

Brazil to my suprise broke too many of my games to the point im no longer choosing them manually, their cities are very high, and they can go wide.
Im guessing its because of "-50% Unhappiness from needs in your Cities during Carnival", this, with some effort (WLTKD) is access to happiness mitigators, that
normally are not available to anyone until about renaissance, and even then you still need to put many turns of production to build Public Works..
So it seems, from my practise Brazil is strong..
Additional culture from their unique luxury also help them speed up trough policy trees faster then others and getting those juicy happiness nodes, not to mention
even further reduce Boredom unhappiness from luxury..

Back in vanilla, the main way of earning points towards a GA was excess happiness. There were pretty much no instances of GAPs themselves distributed as a regular yield. Meanwhile, we have the artistry tree in VP that gives something like 18GAP per city per turn.

With current state, its seems like another "tool" to pursue additional culture/production booster, not something that spontaneously happen to your civilisation..
From some time, i'm setting manually all civilizations, excluding those that snowball too much on regular basis. Mostly i remove hardcore warmongers like Rome, also Indonesia is very
strong with their early unique unit.. But my last game literally everyone took Artistry.. coincidence?

You see it by looking in the tooltip as the next golden age starts in a negative amount of turns

One way to solve it is, not to allow to store any points during golden age, and after GA you always start from zero, no matter what.. That would solve "chaining" issue
When you are in golden age, you dont work towards next golden age, you you just enjoy current golden age until its finished..
This would also solve issue with Great Artists being able to give so much GAP that lasts for 2 GA..

The thing is that for some reason late-ish Great Artists give ridiculous amount of Golden Age Points

To my understanding they scale with culture from last 10 or 20 turns.. Same as culture bomb from Great Writer..
And i think additionally with number of themed Great Works..

 

[azum4roll]

One way to solve it is, not to allow to store any points during golden age, and after GA you always start from zero, no matter what.. That would solve "chaining" issue

It's a "feels bad" mechanic, and the AI will never know how to save Stadiums, Great Artists, etc. to not "waste" GAP.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm trying a game right now as India where I went artistry, and have a golden age monopoly (also took Mastery for some additional GAP). I have heard people mention that great artists aren't even necessary for eternal Golden age lategame, so I wanted to try it for myself and see what happens. So no great artists GAP bombs this game.

 

[pineappledan]

You probably won't get permanent until Freedom in that case, but you'll get there.

 

[ma_kuh]

It's a "feels bad" mechanic, and the AI will never know how to save Stadiums, Great Artists, etc. to not "waste" GAP.

Can GAPs be converted to other yields during Golden Age? I don't know what a good modifier would be, but something like 4% of GAP added to capital's , , , , during GA would at least mean the yields aren't wasted, while still guaranteeing the GA ends at some point. Would need to be something low enough that Artist bulbs don't eclipse the value of GE + GM + GS + GW yields during GA.

Maybe tie it into the Guilds to give both a way to scale but also an upper limit:
"All Guilds: 4% of global GAP added as science, culture, production, gold and food to this city during Golden Ages."

So you could get up to 12% in the capital, and another 24% spread across the empire. And then policies or abilities can improve the conversion rate, if that proves an interesting design direction.