NiGHTS: on balance issues

[V. Soma]

May ther be a thread for observations regarding balance issues of various things?

so...

1.

Playing v9.8 tiny pangaea map,
England settled a single city very-very far away form her main empire,
just between me and Germany...

Also did Korea, far far away from "home", on the other end of the world...

Markus, can it be coded that the AI would keep their cities coherent geographically?

2.

Unit upgrade cost:

I think it is kind of uneven in scaling up:
I had upgraded my rifles to infantry, and it went like this:
1. 150 gold, 2. 150 gold (same!), 3. 660 (if I remember well)...

3.

Unit production cost

Playing on Quick:

I have 3-4 units of Infantry, and now my cities with production 50-70
would train the next Infantry in sg like 15 turns... on Quick speed! is that OK?

4.

I already mentioned in the other thread but playing on Quick speed
tech advancement is a bit slow (see the Tech thread)

 

[markusbeutel]

May ther be a thread for observations regarding balance issues of various things?

so...

1.

Playing v9.8 tiny pangaea map,
England settled a single city very-very far away form her main empire,
just between me and Germany...

Also did Korea, far far away from "home", on the other end of the world...

Markus, can it be coded that the AI would keep their cities coherent geographically?

2.

Unit upgrade cost:

I think it is kind of uneven in scaling up:
I had upgraded my rifles to infantry, and it went like this:
1. 150 gold, 2. 150 gold (same!), 3. 660 (if I remember well)...

3.

Unit production cost

Playing on Quick:

I have 3-4 units of Infantry, and now my cities with production 50-70
would train the next Infantry in sg like 15 turns... on Quick speed! is that OK?

4.

I already mentioned in the other thread but playing on Quick speed
tech advancement is a bit slow (see the Tech thread)

I'll look at the tech speeds for quick - I've done most of my testing on standard/epic - so marathon/quick might be a little bit off at points. Do you have libraries/universities in all your cities and it still seems slow? I'd rather it seems slow as opposed to fast, as some of the saves/screenshots I've been getting from previous versions showed that teching was going much to fast in the later eras.

As for unit upgrades, that's something I'm still trying to balance. As for why they ramp up in cost, the upgrades follow the same route as production, where units of the same type cost +25% more to build/upgrade each time. This was done to promote the building of various unit types, not just always the latest/greatest - so that you'd have a diverse army of units, and not only 1 type. (I'm not entirely sure why the first few upgrades are sometimes the same price - this is something I'll hopefully address soon.) Although I'm not sure I mind it the way it is, as it allows you to get out the first few units pretty cheaply, and then puts a premium on additional units.

As for the AI expanding, I can't really stop them from going far from home and at the same time keep their early-game expansion competitive. I could introduce some sort of maintenance penalty for being further away from the capital, (like in CIV IV), but I'd need dll access to teach the AI how this works.

 

[V. Soma]

Do you have libraries/universities in all your cities and it still seems slow?

Yes, universities, plus Oxford too I have...
I make 500 bakers per turn now in the 1900s

(Quick, with ca. 8 cities)

 

[markusbeutel]

Yes, universities, plus Oxford too I have...
I make 500 bakers per turn now in the 1900s

(Quick, with ca. 8 cities)

Hmm - the latest release might help a bit in that it reduces the cost of RA's, (as I hadn't adjusted them for how the AI now spends it's gold at an accelerated rate). Did you have a lot of active RA's throughout the game? If not, this will be much more feasible in v9.8b, and this might help give that added tech boost to align/balance tech rates.

 

[V. Soma]

Hmm - the latest release might help a bit in that it reduces the cost of RA's, (as I hadn't adjusted them for how the AI now spends it's gold at an accelerated rate). Did you have a lot of active RA's throughout the game? If not, this will be much more feasible in v9.8b, and this might help give that added tech boost to align/balance tech rates.

No I did not have any RAs...
and by the way I don't think the AI had much either...

 

[markusbeutel]

No I did not have any RAs...
and by the way I don't think the AI had much either...

Yep - That would be because they were spending gold on units/buildings most of the time and I didn't remember to factor that in to their cost.

There should be more RA's going around in v9.8b, and if there's still not happening every once in awhile, I'll lower their cost a bit more still. I think doing this should cover any tech shortfalls, as opposed to outright lowering tech costs at this point.

But as I said earlier, Quick/Marathon have got the least amount of balance work so far, so I'll make a point of it to focus on these areas for future updates.

 

[OrionNebulae]

I don't know if this is an important issue but it seems to me that the function to calculate the culture costs for a new tile is a little steep - my capital city does not even own the third ring completely (and none of the tiles of the fourth) and already needs 2840 culture points for the next tile. I'm playing on deity difficulty and standard size. As a comparision: The culture needed for the next "culture tech" is 2440 ...

 

[markusbeutel]

I don't know if this is an important issue but it seems to me that the function to calculate the culture costs for a new tile is a little steep - my capital city does not even own the third ring completely (and none of the tiles of the fourth) and already needs 2840 culture points for the next tile. I'm playing on deity difficulty and standard size. As a comparision: The culture needed for the next "culture tech" is 2440 ...

How much culture is your capital producing during this time? It's true that I have increased the amount of culture required, but I've generally found that the tile-expansion is at a reasonable level if you focus on more of the culture orientated policies/buildings.

Having said that, there's a few new building abilities coming in v9.9 that will yield culture on a per population basis, (like libraries w/science). How these come into play will have an affect on cultural border expansion - as it's one of the things I'm still balancing right now.

 

[OrionNebulae]

How much culture is your capital producing during this time? It's true that I have increased the amount of culture required, but I've generally found that the tile-expansion is at a reasonable level if you focus on more of the culture orientated policies/buildings.

Having said that, there's a few new building abilities coming in v9.9 that will yield culture on a per population basis, (like libraries w/science). How these come into play will have an affect on cultural border expansion - as it's one of the things I'm still balancing right now.

My capital is doing about 100 culture/turn - I'm not so much worried about my capital though - I'm more worried about my smaller cities which do not produce even close to that amount and essentially stop expanding after 5 or 6 tiles.
Buildings granting culture on a per population level would help much though ...

But on the other hand it is hard for me to keep up with building all the sensible buildings even in the capital right now ... the reason is not so much the costs but the sheer amount of choices - but perhaps I just have to adapt my playstyle here and to make more choices.

 

[markusbeutel]

My capital is doing about 100 culture/turn - I'm not so much worried about my capital though - I'm more worried about my smaller cities which do not produce even close to that amount and essentially stop expanding after 5 or 6 tiles.
Buildings granting culture on a per population level would help much though ...

But on the other hand it is hard for me to keep up with building all the sensible buildings even in the capital right now ... the reason is not so much the costs but the sheer amount of choices - but perhaps I just have to adapt my playstyle here and to make more choices.

The amount of buildings can be a little daunting - prioritizing is key here. In my games, I usually focus on growth buildings at the onset of a game with a production building thrown in here or there - and I'll keep this cycle going until my economy starts to suffer - and at that point I'll string a chain of gold orientated buildings together - or depending on the situation, adopt commerce and/or play specialists if I've grown sufficiently enough.

Monuments are one of the buildings that will generate culture on a per/population basis - I'm just trying to come up with a number right now, as 1 for 1 or even 1 for 2 would be quite unbalanced.

One fairly large change that's coming is a slight hit to happiness for each policy branch you unlock. Part of the reason the AI struggles with policies more than a human player is that they tend to go deep into policy branches before alternating - and with how strong the openers are for the branches, this can really set them back. This is part of the reason why they overcompensate by expanding at an accelerated pace.

Each branch will now end up costing 1 Unhappiness per City - so automatically unlocking Piety+Order+Tradition to start a game will now have greater potential consequences, (unless you play more of a tall empire - then this won't hurt as much).

Seeing as how Cities already generate 20 Unhappiness each, this isn't a huge amount to sacrifice, but when you'll feel it the most is in the early game. To compensate for this, the AI will not expand quite as fast, (on settler to king difficulty). They'll expand at roughly the same pace on the higher difficulty levels.

But anyways - sleep calls. I'll get v9.9 uploaded sometime tomorrow afternoon - fix any reported bugs, and release it to the ModBrowser sometime on Sunday.

Out of curiosity - what time zones are people in? I find I'm usually heading off to sleep just when things start to pick up on here.

 

[kirbz]

CET here, which is GMT+1

 

[OrionNebulae]

CET here, which is GMT+1

Same here

 

[V. Soma]

CET here, which is GMT+1

same here, too...

Perhaps we should form a Union of some sort
to support proper "CET" NiGHTS release times

 

[OrionNebulae]

Again regarding the amount of culture needed to obtain a tile - perhaps it would be possible that some culture buildings could instead of offering a per citizen culture bonus lower the steepness of the function of the tiles culture costs. I mention this since I think that policy costs overall are fine or even possibly a little low for my 5 cities empire.

 

[markusbeutel]

same here, too...

Perhaps we should form a Union of some sort
to support proper "CET" NiGHTS release times

Again regarding the amount of culture needed to obtain a tile - perhaps it would be possible that some culture buildings could instead of offering a per citizen culture bonus lower the steepness of the function of the tiles culture costs. I mention this since I think that policy costs overall are fine or even possibly a little low for my 5 cities empire.

There are a few buildings that reduce this amount - so it's possible you just haven't focused on those enough at this point. The Abbey in particular can help out in this regard. And adopting Tradition gives + 20% global boost, while the Piety Branch has a policy that provides an additional +10% global boost.

Stock Exchange = +5% global tile culture modifier
Angkor Wat = +25% global tile culture modifier
Abbey = +10% local tile culture modifier

 

[OrionNebulae]

I bought the abbey already in all cities but it still increases to very high amounts on deity difficulty - I haven't done any math yet but it seems that I will soon need about 5k culture points for an expansion and compared to the progress in the culture tree this seems rather high to me (got finshers in two branches now at level 3 in the third).

Considering that starting with the fourth circle I can't use gold to buy tiles any more this would mean that it easily takes 150k for the 24 tiles of the fourth circle.

 

[markusbeutel]

I bought the abbey already in all cities but it still increases to very high amounts on deity difficulty - I haven't done any math yet but it seems that I will soon need about 5k culture points for an expansion and compared to the progress in the culture tree this seems rather high to me (got finshers in two branches now at level 3 in the third).

Considering that starting with the fourth circle I can't use gold to buy tiles any more this would mean that it easily takes 150k for the 24 tiles of the fourth circle.

I'll increase the range for buying plots in v9.9.

 

[V. Soma]

Playing 9.9d on Quick, tiny map, 5 civs, 5 CSs

I am in ca. 2010, and only in late Industrial age.
The civs are behing me by 5-6 techs...

I think teching gets "lagging" around in the Renaissance or so...

Or is it only because of quick speed and the small (tiny) map?
I have 8 cities, other civs have 6-7 I guess...

Also, I think AI should more heavily and more completely do unit upgrade,
I see AI armies of "combined forces", say: warriors and rifles in a team...

 

[Balerune]

When steam power is researched wooden ships are obsoleted which leaves a gap in long range warships. (Like when the AI kills all my warships.) It seems to me that historically you would have long range wooden ships built along with short range steamships or steamships of the line built as well. (I'm no naval expert so here is the wikipedia article) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Land/Wooden_steam_warship

Anyway when I play as England I need something.

 

[maceman121]

Playing England and I believe the galley might be dis-balanced. Went to war with Greece and my city bombarded one of their galley, bringing it down to about 2 HPs. Now currently my Caravel, Ship of the Line (obviously here XD) and a full health galley instantly kill another galley, but that nearly dead galley turned and sunk a full health galley with one hit. Full health I can sort of understand, but isn't its strength to low if it can be sunk by another galley nearly dead already?

Also, should a Lancer on Defense get a -15% Terrain Modifier and a +20% Defensive Terrain Modifier as well? Kind of seems a bit odd to me.