Poll: Ancient Ruins Rewards Balance

[TwoPodRay]

This poll is to get a gauge on the community's opinion of balance with regards to the Ancient Ruins rewards and is modeled after a similar one on Pantheons that Stalker0 created.

There were no major changes suggested in the recent AR rework proposal found in General Balance here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ancient-ruins-rewards-changes.673597/

For the poll, please select one option for each of the 12 rewards, whether you think No Change is needed, or if you think that reward Needs Adjustment. Further discussion can then be generated based on those rewards needing adjustment to determine what the new rewards should be. Below is the full list of the current AR rewards.

1. Convince the remaining population to join one of your cities: +1 Population in nearest city
2. Use this contact with the lost tribe to enhance your Culture: +X Culture Points in nearest city
3. Trade with the lost tribe for Gold: +X amount of Gold
4. Study their tools to discover a new technology: +1 Free technology
5. Supplies for Production in your nearest City: +X Production in nearest city
6. A tribe that gives you land around your nearest City: +X number of free tiles in nearest city
7. Use equipment around the tribe to upgrade your unit: i.e. Unit Promotion (Pathfinder to Scout)
8. (unsure of trigger condition) Relics for Golden Age Points: +X Golden Age Points
9. (unsure of trigger condition) Discover experience: +X amount of unit XP
10. Have a look at their maps: X number of nearby tiles revealed
11. (unsure of trigger condition) Study the lost tribe's religion: +X Faith Points
12. (only given on easier difficulties, per the Civilopdeia) Survivors: +1 free Worker or Settler

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Should the amount of Gold given be normalized? I think it can range from 55-135.

From what I've seen, only Scouting units can get the Map. They also get about 60? XP.

Faith ruins spawn around turn 20 and later. And later on, you can get a boost towards a Prophet.

 

[balparmak]

I wouldn't miss it if discover a map was removed from the pool, it feels very underwhelming compared to the others.

edit: because I'm a certified noob

 

[Rekk]

From what I've seen, only Scouting units can get the Map. They also get about 60? XP.

The map and XP are mutually exclusive. One is for recon units (who count as exploring the tiles and therefore get XP), while the other units just get XP.

 

[Delvemor]

The map and XP are mutually exclusive. One is for recon units (who count as exploring the tiles and therefore get XP), while the other units just get XP.

If that's how it works I'm OK with it since a recon unit might get up to 2 promotions after discovering tiles this way, but not other units.

 

[Rekk]

An annoying issue is that recon units get +X% yields on ancient ruins... But a large fraction of the bonuses don't give yields. We could change this by:
Free tech -> science
Free pop -> food
Free tiles -> border growth points (or make it scale by modifying the promotion could f possible)
Remove free promotion
Make Bonus XP / map tiles scale (if possible)

 

[dostillevi]

1) I'm fine with +1 pop - we already get food from meeting city states so I'd rather not double up on that.
2) Culture is good
3) Gold is good
4) Free tech is swingy - no city states give a science boost, so I'd be fine with switching this to a science boost towards current tech. It's really fun getting free techs, but if you get a few it's a huge boost compared to getting, say, a few gold ruins. It also feels bad when you don't get any.
5) Production is good
6) I think free tiles around nearest city should only occur as an event once per city. If you don't have any cities that haven't already gained tiles, re-roll for a different reward. It has such diminishing returns and it feels really bad when you hit it for the 3rd or 4th time, which is too common in my experience.
7) I know a lot of people want this gone entirely, but I think it could be adjusted to be less common. One of my most frequent plays is to get a scout and then use that to sweep barbs well into the classical era. It's a significant advantage for an authority civ that might not otherwise be working the top of the tech tree for the scout line. So much so that not getting the scout makes Authority feel much weaker in the early game.
8) I don't think I've ever gotten golden age points.
9) Unit XP feels weak. I think it should be enough to give an untested warrior 2 promotions. If that doesn't feel right, I'd be inclined to change it to something like giving a specific promotion like woodsman or possibly a promotion unique to barbs like the one that lets them ignore terrain costs.
10) The XP bonus and ruins knowledge from this are fantastic. I used to dislike this, but I've come around quite a bit since I can use the map to better plan scout routes, and this also gets me towards the heal-on-action promotion much faster.
11) I've definitely never gotten a worker or a settler from a ruin. Maybe this happens later in the game? I'd probably nix this option entirely.

 

[HeroOfTheSword]

The worst one is the free tech as it's way too OP. Like I've had games where I've gotten 3 free techs from ruins which stands to reason that the AI's probably get free tech ruins when I don't! The AI's already get enough bonuses at the start and this only adds to that which isn't really fair. Better to just get a boost to current science, and not a particularly high boost either.

 

[azum4roll]

Change free population to constant food
Reduce amount of gold (or change it to constant amount on the low end)
Change free tech to science
Change free tiles to border growth points
Reduce faith gain, especially for the instant pantheon one

 

[JamesNinelives]

I don't think the free tech is OP to be honest, we could change it science but I would want to be something meaningful so that it doesn't become just another dead option. Discovering a ruin early-game is really exciting, especially on higher-difficulty games. I'm fine with increasing predictability but I don't think they should be nerfed overall. If the issue is that the AI gets all the ruins, that is not the same as the rewards being bad!

The ones I think should be changed are 1) faith after turn 20 (that is the strongest current reward IMO) and 2) unit xp (which is the weakest current reward).

Please keep the map reveal option, it's one of my favourites to get as a scout and if anything it favours the player because the AI isn't that great at using recon units.

 

[Arizael]

An annoying issue is that recon units get +X% yields on ancient ruins... But a large fraction of the bonuses don't give yields. We could change this by:
Free tech -> science
Free pop -> food
Free tiles -> border growth points (or make it scale by modifying the promotion could f possible)
Remove free promotion
Make Bonus XP / map tiles scale (if possible)

This. Free tech on slower speeds is simply insane. Free pop as well, to lesser extent. Especially later in the game, where you stumble on l one isolated ruins.

I personally also dislike the free promotion. It feels both underwhelming and out of place.

 

[Tantro]

I think the recon into scout into map-xp is completely bonkers. It's like - oh hey - lets scout the entire map in classic age, oh warfare? Lets pillage tiles and caravans with impunity while, either giving huge bonus healing to your army, or just go around murdering archers and zone out enemy army. Or park your super-human scout on some mountain so you have full vision of your neighbours that can't be removed until guided missiles. It's probably still a toss up at that point, but I digress.

 

[azum4roll]

I think the recon into scout into map-xp is completely bonkers. It's like - oh hey - lets scout the entire map in classic age, oh warfare? Lets pillage tiles and caravans with impunity while, either giving huge bonus healing to your army, or just go around murdering archers and zone out enemy army. Or park your super-human scout on some mountain so you have full vision of your neighbours that can't be removed until guided missiles. It's probably still a toss up at that point, but I digress.

Said super human scout can be removed from the mountain with a couple of comp bows. Units can't heal on mountains.

 

[looorg]

I really don't have any issues with most of them.

The only once that are somewhat weird and annoying deal with units gaining pure XP or some kind of upgrade (7 & 9). The amount of free xp is to small to matter, and you get it on a unit that would have a ready source of xp anyway. It's just annoying to get the promotion on a unit that is below lv2. That scouts get xp for revealing tiles (10) is ok tho in my mind. I don't have issues with that.

The upgrade unit tho can be very strong as it tends to upgrade into a unit you can't actually build, you normally dont have the tech to turn it into a comp bow (best posible outcome), a scout or a spearman. I don't think I never managed to get it on a horseman (knight?) or swordman (longsword?) cause that would be breaking things. That said it probably shouldn't happen since most of the huts should be long gone by then. Still overall not quite sure what to do about it tho.

The worker/settler just happens on the easiest of difficulty levels so I guess it doesn't matter. It's a crutch for that level so it's fine. But it might need adjustment if people still look for it on later levels and wonder why it never happens.

I don't believe the others such as a tech or a pop should change to a yield. It would sometimes be better and sometimes be worse. Such as if I just grew getting a pop is nice, if i'm about to grow getting a pop is somewhat annoying. If I gain a pop while building a settler if somehow feels wasted, but at the same time is nice cause I can just chain another settlers after.

Getting a free tech on higher difficulty is nice but it doesn't matter vs the AI really. It's nice for you but not really of detriment to them. Also for the most of it you are getting a first tier tech most of the time, rarely it might be a second tier tech. It would be some hidden away miracle hut if it goes beyond that.

There have been some very minor edge cases where getting a free tech has been annoying, mostly when dealing with civs that allow you to construct some special tile improvement and then you sort of reveal stone or something and it can't be built on the tile you are building it on. Annoying as you might then have put off researching that tech to prevent that scenario from happening. But it's not a big enough deal I would want to change the entire system.


If there is ONE of the options that is always "fantastic" or OP as hell it's the free faith one. You get an instant pantheon or you more or less guarantee a religion if you get it later. Or if you get it twice from different huts. It's the only one of the huts I consider to actually be game changing. But I'm not sure it should be changed just cause of it.

I guess the common theme here is that sometimes it feels great and sometimes it feels weird. It's the random of the huts. I don't think anything really have to be done about them in general. If you don't like the slight swings here or there they provide just play without huts?

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Ancient Ruins don't scale with game speed, do they?

 

[Rekk]

1) I'm fine with +1 pop - we already get food from meeting city states so I'd rather not double up on that.

This is a weird take. You can also get other yields like gold, culture and faith from meeting city states.

 

[Rekk]

Completely adjacent to the poll:

It's worth noting that the Shoshone seem to only be allowed to choose each reward once ( I don't know what happens after they have chosen every reward). We could do that with the random rewards.

 

[dostillevi]

This is a weird take. You can also get other yields like gold, culture and faith from meeting city states.

Yeah that's fair.

 

[looorg]

Completely adjacent to the poll:

It's worth noting that the Shoshone seem to only be allowed to choose each reward once ( I don't know what happens after they have chosen every reward). We could do that with the random rewards.

I might be remembering wrong but the civs that can pick can pick the same one, just not hut after hut after hut. So they have to pick some other options a few times and then it's usually unlocked again.

 

[Rekk]

I might be remembering wrong but the civs that can pick can pick the same one, just not hut after hut after hut. So they have to pick some other options a few times and then it's usually unlocked again.

I'm playing the Shoshone now, and it's not the case. Found a ruin all the way in industrial and the options are still limited to what I haven't picked before.