New Version - December 13th (12-13)

[Gazebo]

I never go for domination wins. I accept that it's easier on marathon though, and I approve of the spirit of the change Gazebo's doing here. I disagree strongly with the implementation, though - I would have preferred it to be proportional to gamespeed equally including the insta-yields from barracks.

Now I feel my enjoyment of Epic's going to go down - similarly to the reason I don't play Marathon now, solely because I don't enjoy that city state influence declines faster in relative terms, while emissaries/etc. require more hammers, so the balance of CSD is altered compared to Epic and Normal, where the balance is equal. My peculiar OCD preferences in how I play strategy games are not Gazebo's problem or anyone else's, though. If Normal is now the only speed that is balanced properly on a mechanical level for XP, I'll play on that and I'm fine with that.

Again, test, experiment, report back. Knee-jerk reactions to change just help no one.

G

 

[Kierkegaard]

Cannot send trade routes to a foreign city if a trade route from a another owned city is already targeting that city

This means that for America f.e. only one of the cities (Los Angeles and New York) can trade for example with Bejing?
I understand the reasoning in the game, but it feels kinda weird as in real life of course there can be multiple trade routes from cities of one nation to another city.

I wonder how this will impact Venice too.

New UA - +1 to all Yields in Capital per unique Trade Route partner, scaling with Era. Trade Route yields to or from Moroccan cities are not affected by distance. Can plunder Trade Units connected to unowned cities without declaring war.

Will Arabia get a negative diplomacy modifier for doing this to another AI?

 

[Mad Madigan]

I'm still not convinced having military training buildings not provide enough XP for a promotion each isn't going to drive my OCD bonkers, but I'm going to give the new patch a few test runs so I can try it out. Queuing up Epic-speed games for Germany, Morocco and Japan to see how the new AI difficulty curves and XP changes "feel".

 

[pineappledan]

Great patch, @Gazebo, can't wait to try out the new Morocco.

I have a question about the scaling for trade route distance though:

• Is it a bonus amount of gold/science/culture for distance, or a penalty? Specifically with regards to the Morocco UA, if it's a bonus for distance then the language of Morocco's UA makes it sound like trade with Morocco is less profitable, since they don't get distance bonuses. Could just be a language thing
• Does distance scale all 3 normal yields, and does it scale them all by the same amount? For instance, does gold scale twice as fast as science does? I can imagine that culture IRL would scale more as a function of distance with trade routes than science would.
• How much scaling are we talking about here? ie. if I pick a city that is 4 tiles away, how much more will I get for a city that is at the max distance of a sea route?
• Do distance scalers for land and sea trade routes scale at different rates?
• Is it accurate to say that a trade route with Morocco always gives yields as if it was at the maximum distance?

 

[CrazyG]

I think that the bonus XP provided by barracks or other sources should definently scale with game speed

 

[Gazebo]

This means that for America f.e. only one of the cities (Los Angeles and New York) can trade for example with Bejing?
I understand the reasoning in the game, but it feels kinda weird as in real life of course there can be multiple trade routes from cities of one nation to another city.

I wonder how this will impact Venice too.




Will Arabia get a negative diplomacy modifier for doing this to another AI?

Morocco, you mean? If so, yes. If not...no?

Great patch, @Gazebo, can't wait to try out the new Morocco.

I have a question about the scaling for trade route distance though:

• Is it a bonus amount of gold/science/culture for distance, or a penalty? Specifically with regards to the Morocco UA, if it's a bonus for distance then the language of Morocco's UA makes it sound like trade with Morocco is less profitable, since they don't get distance bonuses. Could just be a language thing
• Does distance scale all 3 normal yields, and does it scale them all by the same amount? For instance, does gold scale twice as fast as science does? I can imagine that culture IRL would scale more as a function of distance with trade routes than science would.
• How much scaling are we talking about here? ie. if I pick a city that is 4 tiles away, how much more will I get for a city that is at the max distance of a sea route?
• Do distance scalers for land and sea trade routes scale at different rates?
• Is it accurate to say that a trade route with Morocco always gives yields as if it was at the maximum distance?

It is a penalty. If a city has a maximum distance of, say, 12, and the city is 6 away, it'll be at a penalty of around 50%.
Scales them all the same.
Depends on the city's range.
Yes, the range of the city determines it. The system pushes you towards risk/reward - longer, less secure routes are worth more than close, safe routes.
Yes.

I think that the bonus XP provided by barracks or other sources should definently scale with game speed

Again, I disagree, and I've laid out why. Scaling XP from buildings/etc. greatly reduces the efficacy of the change itself, and the increased amount of combat in an epic/marathon game scales the XP without needing to change the baseline values.

G

 

[Enginseer]

This means that for America f.e. only one of the cities (Los Angeles and New York) can trade for example with Bejing?
I understand the reasoning in the game, but it feels kinda weird as in real life of course there can be multiple trade routes from cities of one nation to another city.

I feel like this was based off the Civ 4's Commerce system where only one city could trade with the same foreign city while you can still trade domestically a lot.

In fact I feel most of the Vox Populi's new concepts if not all are based off Civ 4 which makes me wonder about if this community had ever played Civ 4.

 

[Gazebo]

I feel like this was based off the Civ 4's Commerce system where only one city could trade with the same foreign city while you can still trade domestically a lot.

In fact I feel most of the Vox Populi's new concepts if not all are based off Civ 4 which makes me wonder about if this community had ever played Civ 4.

Shhhh....

 

[CrazyG]

Again, I disagree, and I've laid out why. Scaling XP from buildings/etc. greatly reduces the efficacy of the change itself, and the increased amount of combat in an epic/marathon game scales the XP without needing to change the baseline values.

Maybe I misunderstand the change?

If an archer started at 0 XP and attacks every turn in standard, it would reach its 4th promotion at a certain year, right?

Now if an archer started at 0 XP and attacked every turn in epic, it would reach its promotion at about the same year (due to the change), correct? So after the change, the two difficulties will play more similarily than before.

But if you add in a barracks or armory, now the standard archer is leveling up faster than the epic archer. Furthermore, 10 flat experience is now worth less in epic than in standard. Wouldn't this mean that certain unique traits, such as orders, Assyrian great works, or Swedish-general births and now worth more on standard than on epic?

 

[Txurce]

I'm using God of the Open Sky (with Morocco), and according to the tooltip, I'm getting faith for cattle, but not for wheat. My total's off by the two wheat, as well. Is this a bug that's been mentioned before?

 

[Gazebo]

Maybe I misunderstand the change?

If an archer started at 0 XP and attacks every turn in standard, it would reach its 4th promotion at a certain year, right?

Now if an archer started at 0 XP and attacked every turn in epic, it would reach its promotion at about the same year (due to the change), correct? So after the change, the two difficulties will play more similarily than before.

But if you add in a barracks or armory, now the standard archer is leveling up faster than the epic archer. Furthermore, 10 flat experience is now worth less in epic than in standard. Wouldn't this mean that certain unique traits, such as orders, Assyrian great works, or Swedish-general births and now worth more on standard than on epic?

XP from combat was not changed, only the threshold needed to level up. I absolutely and unabashedly agree that XP from buildings etc. is weaker. But I also note that the duration and frequency of conflict (and the fact that XP gained in battle is the same on both speeds) means that, for the duration of a game, epic/marathon units are going to gain XP such that the lower starting bumps from buildings etc. will be offset.

Edit: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, however what I'm trying to avoid is some sort of weird XP scaling system through which XP from combat etc. scales. I want to avoid that because the numbers are so small.

TL;DR - longer games are made much easier for humans because promotions are easy to come by. Longer games now required more in-combat XP to achieve standard speed results.

Edit edit: To note, I'm not necessarily against changing it (even if I disagree on it), but I do feel that my rationale makes sense as a curative to the relative ease players seem to have on longer speed games.


G

 

[lordrune]

TL;DR - longer games are made much easier for humans because promotions are easy to come by. Longer games now required more in-combat XP to achieve standard speed results.

Edit edit: To note, I'm not necessarily against changing it (even if I disagree on it), but I do feel that my rationale makes sense as a curative to the relative ease players seem to have on longer speed games.

G

Your rationale makes sense as a curative to the problem of gaining promotions too fast. in that context alone, but it doesn't seem to make sense in other contexts. Obviously XP from combat definitely should not scale because it's a 'per turn' factor, just like you would not bump tile yields up (again, they are 'per turn'). However the overall change feels non-intuitive compared to other systems in Vox Populi (and again, maybe this is because we've been spoilt in the past by the elegant insta yield systems) because instant production of elite units is now far more powerful on quick difficulty than it is on marathon. It's going to be nuts when a military civ late game pumps out units immediately with lots of promotions, just because speed is quick, but barely anything on marathon.

I contend that you could still achieve the same result just by multiplying the XP required for every promotion by the differential in number of turns (e.g. multiply by 3 for marathon, 1.5 for epic, 0.66 for quick - and multiply the XP from the barracks, armory, Assyria's ability, etc. by that same factor. So on marathon, for example, the barracks would add 45 XP, definitely enough to give you the first promotion on marathon, but it would take significant fighting to get following promotion levels. To be precise, exactly as much more fighting, as is proportional to the length of the game. Combat XP gain has to remain static, absolutely.

Either way the challenge of warmongering would still be increased on epic and more on marathon compared to what it was, and I agree that's a desirable goal, it would just be a more elegant way of doing it, one that is equally balanced with both elite production and in-combat XP gain for all game speeds.That's assuming you CAN buff the insta-XP yields on production, without having to increase the combat XP gain.

I understand your point that maybe it needs to be nerfed even more than makes mathematical sense on the longer speeds though, and while I don't like how buildings are now uncoupled from the curve on most game length settings other than normal, it is your mod.

 

[pineappledan]

By making xp scale the xp buildings are implicitly less valuable, ie lower priority. The real value of an xp building is the # of promotions it gives. Likewise, the Unique components that affect xp will be hard hit by that change.

That change implicitly nerfs warmonger civs with XP-related UBs and UA on slower game speeds and buffs them at fast game speeds (Assyria, Japan, Zulu, Sweden)

By the same token, warmonger civs with no xp boosting abilities are comparatively buffed/nerfed in relation (France, Huns, mongols)

No skin off my back, though. I’m a normal game speed guy

 

[emdash]

I like unexpected changes (@ trade route things), and I also always thought xp should scale with game speed because of how much I enjoy Epic. It would prol throw the whole game off, but scaling more combat related would make me happier. Unit Damage and health for defense buildings doesn't scale, does it?

Either way, nice one.

 

[lordrune]

I like unexpected changes (@ trade route things), and I also always thought xp should scale with game speed because of how much I enjoy Epic. It would prol throw the whole game off, but scaling more combat related would make me happier. Unit Damage and health for defense buildings doesn't scale, does it?

Either way, nice one.

Damage and health for defense buildings shouldn't scale under any circumstances as they relate to the combat/logistical phases. Not sure if I am going to explain this properly, but in Civ 5, the game speed changes the way that the two 'engines' of the game move together, like gears. The combat or logistical engine is where units - including civilian units - are moving, fighting, etc., and the economic engine is your cities building things. In marathon the logistical engine is relatively fast and the economic engine relatively slow. In quick the logistical engine is relatively slow and the economic engine relatively fast. Because the human operates really well compared to the AI in handling units, there is an innate advantage for even a very mediocre player like myself in playing on the slower speeds.

The exploit, if you like, is that in marathon, the more combat phases you have, the more powerful your units become through promotions. That exploit's been dialed back.

I guess my point is that you want any XP gain triggered by the economic engine to scale with speed, but not gains triggered by the logistical engine (and if Sweden's great general gain rate is geared back to the economic engine's speed, than those XP gains should be multiplied as well).

 

[Questdog]

I will tell you one thing that is definitely weaker in Marathon than in Standard: That poor little starting Pathfinder. A lot tougher for him to survive now. He does not earn his experience from combat (hopefully), so he does not enjoy the benefits of Marathon game speed, but must suffer the penalty like all the rest. I am not complaining (as Larry David says), just pointing it out.

P.S. I play with no goody huts (Ancient Ruins), because getting that little Pathfinder promoted early to a Scout made him an uber-unit. Once you got Medic II on him, nothing on the battlefield could stand toe-to-toe with him. He could take undefended, weaker cities all by himself.... Has there ever been talk of making him unable to initiate combat?

 

[Galbias]

• Germany
  • Votes per CS alliance now 3 (was 2) - yield bonuses for alliance now +2 (was +3)

Just to clarify, this means one vote for every 3 CS alliances, as opposed to the 2 it used to be, right? The wiki also lists 3 of each yield per CS alliance but that may have been nerfed down to 2 at some point.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I'm using God of the Open Sky (with Morocco), and according to the tooltip, I'm getting faith for cattle, but not for wheat. My total's off by the two wheat, as well. Is this a bug that's been mentioned before?

God of the Open Sky boosts pastures specifically, doesn’t it? It’s God of the Sun that boosts wheat. Or has that been changed?

 

[Txurce]

God of the Open Sky boosts pastures specifically, doesn’t it? It’s God of the Sun that boosts wheat. Or has that been changed?

A misfiring synapse told me that cultivated wheat was a pasture -- my mistake, thanks.

 

[pandasnail]

Maybe I misunderstand the change?

If an archer started at 0 XP and attacks every turn in standard, it would reach its 4th promotion at a certain year, right?

Now if an archer started at 0 XP and attacked every turn in epic, it would reach its promotion at about the same year (due to the change), correct? So after the change, the two difficulties will play more similarily than before.

But if you add in a barracks or armory, now the standard archer is leveling up faster than the epic archer. Furthermore, 10 flat experience is now worth less in epic than in standard. Wouldn't this mean that certain unique traits, such as orders, Assyrian great works, or Swedish-general births and now worth more on standard than on epic?

What I think Gazebo is saying is that Epic and Marathon also have a higher percentage of turns at war. Now, he would know waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than me how AI vs AI combat works, but that's not the case for my wars. I think Marathon is theoretically most fun, but I stopped playing it because wars are so short and easy. If they were of equal duration, I'd still be playing it. I research Chivalry and Physics, do some quick upgrading or buying, my neighbor almost certainly doesn't have Castles researched and built. Probably doesn't have Pikemen. So I descend like a pack of vultures and the war is over before it even started. Rinse Repeat. I've had exceptions, some really long Marathon wars, but they are definitely exceptions. Whereas on Standard, the AI has more defenses built and can replace them faster.

I, in fact, would guarantee that if I played a Standard size 8/16 Pangaea on Standard speed and a Standard size 8/16 Pangaea on Marathon (or enough games to be statistically significant), by the time I won the game my highest level units would be more leveled on the the Standard speed. And I mean before this change even, when promotions cost the same. It would be way later, so 'promos per tech' would favor Marathon of course. But I find that 'percentage of turns at war' goes down as game speed slows. I mentioned exceptions above for Marathon, my standard speed 'exception' was a game as Portugal I fought The Ottomans from the late Ren all the way the til I built the Spaceship. And there were no Christmas Day soccer games going on, no armistices. That's probably not possible with war weariness now. I'm just mentioning it, because while the slowest wars on Marathon can be slow, the slowest wars on Standard can be reeeeeeeeeeeeeally slow as well.

But like I said, Gazebo would know way better how AI wars work.

XP from combat was not changed, only the threshold needed to level up. I absolutely and unabashedly agree that XP from buildings etc. is weaker. But I also note that the duration and frequency of conflict (and the fact that XP gained in battle is the same on both speeds) means that, for the duration of a game, epic/marathon units are going to gain XP such that the lower starting bumps from buildings etc. will be offset.

Edit: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, however what I'm trying to avoid is some sort of weird XP scaling system through which XP from combat etc. scales. I want to avoid that because the numbers are so small.

TL;DR - longer games are made much easier for humans because promotions are easy to come by. Longer games now required more in-combat XP to achieve standard speed results.

Edit edit: To note, I'm not necessarily against changing it (even if I disagree on it), but I do feel that my rationale makes sense as a curative to the relative ease players seem to have on longer speed games.


G

Well, no, I don't think anyone is suggesting the XP gain from combat scales, only from the buildings, wonders, etc. If both of them technically being instant yields means they can't (easily) be decoupled in the code, then say so, and, yeah we'll have to deal with war buildings being worse on the speeds where war is still easiest. That's not the end of the world. This is such a good change overall that its more than worth it. But if they can be separated and scale, I agree with the others that they should. For one thing, it hurts the AI if they don't. The higher percentage of XP that comes from active XP (fighting) and the less from passive XP (buildings) the better that is for player. My units are still the ones more likely to survive the war after all. It doesn't negate the goodness of the change, but it does start in that direction.