C2C - Civics Discussion Thread

[BlueGenie]

Sure I am happy to play around with it. My biggest issue is the switch from Anarchism to Chiefdom which I think slows down AI exapnsion

I can accept that view. The best would be to reduce the effect PreTribeMaint has over time, meaning at various points reduce how much maintenance it reduces, being down to about 20% before researching Chiefdom, and obsoleting it at Chiefdom.
The PreTribeMaint is really there only to stop too much negative income until reaching Barter and Tribalism due to the increased base City Maintenances so reducing it's effect over time is perfectly functional.
The first thing might be to reduce it to 60% instead of the current 90%.
Then Barter and Tribalism could both reduce 20% each.

Cheers

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm still a bit at a loss to understand why we would need to manipulate upkeep with a building at all... why not through civics alone? It should be acceptable with the first default civic choice to have the player REALLY want to get off of that civic asap when growth begins to take place.

 

[MacCoise]

What do the Flavor files in XML do?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Adjust the value for leaders to select a given civic based on the leader's flavors.

 

[BlueGenie]

I'm still a bit at a loss to understand why we would need to manipulate upkeep with a building at all... why not through civics alone? It should be acceptable with the first default civic choice to have the player REALLY want to get off of that civic asap when growth begins to take place.

Because if we set the first city to not give any maintenance, or up to -1 or -2 at most at higher difficulties, through civics alone then that will persist through until going away from that civic, and that would increase the problem with big drop in income some experience when switching.
Using a building can offer alternatives like reducing the effect over time so the drop between new civics is reduced.

Of course one could also argue that players should plan ahead and be prepared with the right buildings, not have expanded too much, and so on, before switching, but we also need to consider the AI. A sudden change they are or are not expecting can help stagnate the AI.
If they expect it they might not switch until much later and lose a lot because of that.
If they do not expect it costs could increase to the point where they will find themselves in a bind.

With "expect" I not only mean the initial cost, but also projected cost from a) more negative cost buildings, b) more cities, and c), the big one, higher population in the cities (this one is doubly as it also increases -Education and could drop commerce and science a fair amount too).

Now if you can set a change in the Civic on City Maintenance by techs learned then that would work just as well, but I am thinking that is not possible, though a building (or several, each with -10% and obsolete by vital techs, and then not limited so they do not take National Wonder slots) is?

Cheers

 

[Thunderbrd]

I would have to go back and look at all that had been done to warrant this move but I can see how you wouldn't have a local straight modifier to maintenance from a civic without a building.

So since I'm not really sure what we WERE doing and how that differs from what we ARE doing I have a hard time here evaluating it. I'm not even 100% sure how pretribemaint is working.

Alberts said sometime back that the baseline for upkeep was set extraordinarily high and the point of pretribemaint appeared to be keeping the first cities from being overwhelmed by that high baseline. There's something like only 3 cities that can even get pretribemaint or something right? Ugh... I really need to have it all laid out again.

 

[BlueGenie]

Yes. With all the gold in C2C the City Maintenance baseline needed increasing.
That though made problems in the very beginning, and most PreHistory actually, until Barter and Tribalism, as it gave starting cities as much as 8 gold in initial maintenance.

Thus came about a patch, a band-aid, to cover that, the PreTribeMaint, only designed to exist during the first period so set to be only allowed during Anarchism (and should really be going obsolete at Tribalism, or at the very latest Chiefdom), and as it should only cover the initial, and only the initial city really, it was set to maximum of 2 per nation (to be valid for the AI's second city in higher difficulties).

It is really only a band-aid though, should be either tweaked or replaced with something that works better and does not make a huge difference once it goes obsolete (or the change to Chiefdom), and which is not a real National Wonder (as I do not know how to set up a pseudo one that works in 2 cities and not just 1).
Not only that but reduced effect the further into PreHistory one comes.

Anyway, that is about it with the PreTribeMaint.

Cheers

 

[Taxman66]

Couldn't you have base city maintenance go up with tech discoveries?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Part of the problem with auto build buildings on civics is that they do not show up in the civics screen. Only buildings you can build show up there.

 

[Harrier]

Part of the problem with auto build buildings on civics is that they do not show up in the civics screen. Only buildings you can build show up there.

Is it possible to just write some text in the relevant civic screen area that explains what the auto builds will do?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Is it possible to just write some text in the relevant civic screen area that explains what the auto builds will do?

It would be better if we could find and either link to those buildings or display what they do on screen. IE get the information from the XML of the buildings rather than add text to the civic as people forget to update it when they change the building(s).

It would be even better if we could show a complete effect of the changes that have been selected so you could see what happens when you change one or more civics.

 

[Harrier]

It would be even better if we could show a complete effect of the changes that have been selected so you could see what happens when you change one or more civics.

I agree 100% with this.

Sometimes, when changing more than one civic - it can be a bit of a leap into the dark. Then, if you do not like the changes - which one do you revert back.

 

[MacCoise]

So I have experimented a little with various changes to the Pretribemaint.

Scrapping it altogether just leads to a minus gold situation at the start. Even reducing it to anything below 60 does the same. I tried also limitiing it to only 1 city but the result was the AI just didnt build a second city (up to the Ancient period) anyway.

Making Anarchism weaker and/or making Chiefdom more attractive doesnt't real seem to have much effect on the AI's expansion.

If anybody has the V35 civic setting it would be interesting to test them out to see how the AI behaves differently

 

[JosEPh_II]

So I have experimented a little with various changes to the Pretribemaint.

Scrapping it altogether just leads to a minus gold situation at the start. Even reducing it to anything below 60 does the same. I tried also limitiing it to only 1 city but the result was the AI just didnt build a second city (up to the Ancient period) anyway.

Making Anarchism weaker and/or making Chiefdom more attractive doesnt't real seem to have much effect on the AI's expansion.

If anybody has the V35 civic setting it would be interesting to test them out to see how the AI behaves differently

Last 1st: You would need v34 Maint with Civics settings.

It was right before V35 release that this system was adopted with next to no testing by the modders or players. It should've stayed Only on the Nightmare Mode option that SO had also introduced at that time. Civic changes had been made during the v34 course that were still in need of more testing and balancing. Never were completed.

@MacCoise,
And What gamespeed did you test these changes on? Hopefully Not Eternity but instead Snail/Marathon. Eternity Is Not the Gamespeed to test Maint costs by Civics or any other Maint means as a Standard for the whole Mod.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

It strikes me that we may be able to reduce the baseline to the point that it would not be crippling to a one-city nation again, then simply use +lots% NumCityMaint and +lots% DistanceToCapital maint on civics, reducing significantly with each civic level in the category that has a primary impact here, so as to achieve the desired effects without having to use a building as a patch.

 

[MacCoise]

Yes, I tested on Snail

 

[Toffer90]

Alternative to pretribemaint
Simply make the palace yield a small amount of money to counteract the maintanance problem.
I don't remember how bad the problem was, but something like +5 from palace ought to cover the rough start without unbalancing the later game.

 

[BlueGenie]

It strikes me that we may be able to reduce the baseline to the point that it would not be crippling to a one-city nation again, then simply use +lots% NumCityMaint and +lots% DistanceToCapital maint on civics, reducing significantly with each civic level in the category that has a primary impact here, so as to achieve the desired effects without having to use a building as a patch.

That was the way it was, basically, except the City Maintenance reduction went down to next to nothing at some Civics, to the point where it was too easy to spam out way too many cities with no real increased costs to speak of. My "test" I did and posted at one point that had no limits with how far I really could expand once I passed the point where I could switch to Monarchy.

It is also why the costs on a lot of buildings were added and increased to a point where the AI that builds them incurs to much costs, and a lot of them are thought to cost more than they are worth so human players avoid them and that way gain an advantage over the AI.

If the baseline is reduced but not as far as it was down before, maybe halfway, but enough so Anarchism might manage without PreTribeMaint BUT with having it on 0 changes to Dist and Num cities (I would think -25 as it is now though would be better for the later games) AND increasing the MaxNumCity numbers, then the high costs for buildings could be reduced (and probably help the AI a lot too).

As I see it, and I might be way, way off, several ways to play should be valid and two of them should really fight for the expenses a nation has: Expanding more or Military Troops for defence and offence.
As it is was before you could do both and not need to worry. As it is now (albeit the transitions from Anarchism until Monarchy are right now rough) you actually need to decide what to set more importance to as you can not vamp up both Military and City expenditures.

Cheers

Edit:

Alternative to pretribemaint
Simply make the palace yield a small amount of money to counteract the maintanance problem.
I don't remember how bad the problem was, but something like +5 from palace ought to cover the rough start without unbalancing the later game.

To do that with the -65% gold you start with due to civics you need to set the palace to have +15 gold to get 5 gold in it from start.

 

[Toffer90]

To do that with the -65% gold you start with due to civics you need to set the palace to have +15 gold to get 5 gold in it from start.

Considering the large numbers C2C operates in, It would probably not set the economy out of balance. If so, those 15 gold could always be removed again by techs.

 

[Thunderbrd]

If the baseline is reduced but not as far as it was down before, maybe halfway, but enough so Anarchism might manage without PreTribeMaint BUT with having it on 0 changes to Dist and Num cities (I would think -25 as it is now though would be better for the later games) AND increasing the MaxNumCity numbers, then the high costs for buildings could be reduced (and probably help the AI a lot too).

Between this and a little of Toffer's concept to balance it off, I think we could have a much improved system. To adjust what Toffer is suggesting though, rather than giving a + gold, we could more effectively and even more rationally give the palace a stronger -maintenance% since buildings have that tag capability.

I can trust you'll work out this new approach right? (I'm ALL for getting some of the building maintenances down to more rational levels!)