Quick Questions / Quick Answers

[statusquo]

QUESTION 1
Victory types - i usually play domination only, but AIs when competing for like science victory, dislike you when you are ahead, generally AIs dont like you, when you are competing with them.
If i turn off science victory, do AIs dislike me less, if im ahead in science? I just wonder, if maybe games would be more interesing, when i just leave other victory types on?
Would more victory conditions influence on AIs dislike each other more due to copetitiveness, and therefore result in more wars? Or usually some civilisations have certain biases towards specific
win types, and dont rly care about the others? Or competivieness is set "in stone" so AIs dont like more advanced civz regardless if science victory is possible or not?

QUESTION 2
Chosing game Diffiiculty - Im trying to find some sweet spot between difficulty (= my ambition ) and pleasure, if its too easy, im kinda bored and abandoning the game around Renessiance/Industrial.
If its too hard, usually on Diety, its kinda frustrating and im leaving the game overwhelemd. If you play with human, its all about decission making, but to compensate AIs you need to give them some extra yields, but
i have a feeling, that on Diety, its kinda getting ridiculous I did some math and counted how much science it is accumulated between each Era//Tier (Like Ancient T2 / Classical T1)
and considering how much science you need to accumulate and how many techs AIs are usually ahead, seems likse overall AIs have between 50%-100% more science accumulated.. always.. no matter what i do..
Whatever i focus on, im lacking in other departments. The problem is that, even if, to some point, i can compete with AIs, more production for AIs and less cost of building causes, that AIs can actually build all
the buildings between researches, and then when their army is full, they can just, without any pressure switch to science/culture processes while im stuck in building building/units.
So basically i learned, that if you are not being able to compete with production, everything going downhill from that.. Which is kinda hard, because AIs also get big buffs in department of growth and happiness.
The only partial successes so fare i had with Aztecs with growth pantheon and Celts with +2culture per city and +1prod/+1gold per each connected resource.
And i started to use caravans with food to grow my expansions asap, not to mention rerolling starting locations countless times to get some unethical start
I mean, i dont mind that game forces me to standing on my toes, untill i believe that my correct decission making is enough. But its getting frustrating, since i just dont know what i could do better or different..
So my conclussion is that, on Diety, its just almost impossible to just win a random game, with random civilization on random start.. well.. at least for me
So this question may sound stupid, but how can i improve, when i literally have no ideas what can i do better ?
Or maybe just diety is designed in such way, what usually you shouldnt win, and Emperor is the last semi-realistic difficulty level?
Are you also getting bored of the game, the moment you start dominating the AIs?
Honestly, my actual problem is that i from longest time i wanted to play around some submarines and fighers/bombers, but most of the times, game is done before that..

QUESTION 3
Demographics(or graphs) vs Instant yields - From longest time i was just wondering, and honeslty i dont know why i didnt ask earlier If you get like Authority,
you get a lot of production from border expansions. I noticed that in the star icon, where there are shown instant yields from last 10 turns, there is shown average per turn/per city for like
production and gold. If i see some stats in demographics, or some graphs in InfoAddict, do those instant yields are included in that? I mean, if AI has authority and i have similar production then me,
does it means it has aclual gold/production income similar, or in fact it has much more?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

QUESTION 1
Victory types - i usually play domination only, but AIs when competing for like science victory, dislike you when you are ahead, generally AIs dont like you, when you are competing with them.
If i turn off science victory, do AIs dislike me less, if im ahead in science? I just wonder, if maybe games would be more interesing, when i just leave other victory types on?
Would more victory conditions influence on AIs dislike each other more due to copetitiveness, and therefore result in more wars? Or usually some civilisations have certain biases towards specific
win types, and dont rly care about the others? Or competivieness is set "in stone" so AIs dont like more advanced civz regardless if science victory is possible or not?

QUESTION 2
Chosing game Diffiiculty - Im trying to find some sweet spot between difficulty (= my ambition ) and pleasure, if its too easy, im kinda bored and abandoning the game around Renessiance/Industrial.
If its too hard, usually on Diety, its kinda frustrating and im leaving the game overwhelemd. If you play with human, its all about decission making, but to compensate AIs you need to give them some extra yields, but
i have a feeling, that on Diety, its kinda getting ridiculous I did some math and counted how much science it is accumulated between each Era//Tier (Like Ancient T2 / Classical T1)
and considering how much science you need to accumulate and how many techs AIs are usually ahead, seems likse overall AIs have between 50%-100% more science accumulated.. always.. no matter what i do..
Whatever i focus on, im lacking in other departments. The problem is that, even if, to some point, i can compete with AIs, more production for AIs and less cost of building causes, that AIs can actually build all
the buildings between researches, and then when their army is full, they can just, without any pressure switch to science/culture processes while im stuck in building building/units.
So basically i learned, that if you are not being able to compete with production, everything going downhill from that.. Which is kinda hard, because AIs also get big buffs in department of growth and happiness.
The only partial successes so fare i had with Aztecs with growth pantheon and Celts with +2culture per city and +1prod/+1gold per each connected resource.
And i started to use caravans with food to grow my expansions asap, not to mention rerolling starting locations countless times to get some unethical start
I mean, i dont mind that game forces me to standing on my toes, untill i believe that my correct decission making is enought. But its getting frustrating, since i just dont know what i could do better or different..
So my conclussion is that, on Diety, its just almost impossible to just win a random game, with random civilization on random start.. well.. at least for me
So this question may sound stupid, but how can i improve, when i literally have no ideas what can i do better ?
Or maybe just diety is designed in such way, what usually you shouldnt win, and Emperor is the last semi-realistic difficulty level?
Are you also getting bored of the game, the moment you start dominating the AIs?
Honestly, my actual problem is that i from longest time i wanted to play around some submarines and fighers/bombers, but most of the times, game is done before that..

QUESTION 3
Demographics(or graphs) vs Instant yields - From longest time i was just wondering, and honeslty i dont know why i didnt ask earlier If you get like Authority,
you get a lot of production from border expansions. I noticed that in the star icon, where there are shown instant yields from last 10 turns, there is shown average per turn/per city for like
production and gold. If i see some stats in demographics, or some graphs in InfoAddict, do those instant yields are included in that? I mean, if AI has authority and i have similar production then me,
does it means it has aclual gold/production income similar, or in fact it has much more?

1. The AI in VP is actually smart, so having a technological edge over them more likely to result in a negative opinion modifier (because you could be a threat, for example). However, this is heavily influenced by AI bias (for example some are "angrier" if you mess with City-States, others if you're warring a lot, others with scientific development, etc.) and their general opinion of you. So a friendly AI is - probably - more forgiving for such things.
You can also turn off two options in Advanced Setup - lategame AI aggression boost and victory competition (I personally almost always use the former). These two also have an impact on their behaviour. You can also mess around with certain configs in files, but those don't have that much of an effect from my experience.

2. Deity is completely unfair, and that's intentional. You probably can't win without conquering at least some AI-s (probably, there are a lot of variables in this, such as maps, civs, etc.). You can change certain things in Difficulty files, to tailor it more for your taste. For example, I often play only on King, because in my modmod I give the AI a bunch of bonuses, but most of them start kicking off in midgame. That way, I can enjoy a fairer early game and a bit harder late game, that feels less "unfair" (+ I tend to play on huge maps with lots of civs, which is also a factor for difficulty).

3. No, instant yields are not counted to either of them. Both vanilla demographics screen and Infoaddict uses Lua API which counts only static yields.

 

[statusquo]

3. No, instant yields are not counted to either of them. Both vanilla demographics screen and Infoaddict uses Lua API which counts only static yields.

Hey, are you sure? I just did some testing, and food and production is actually counted.
Those two stats if you look at instant yields icon, is also re-calculated to (per city / per turn).
Not sure why only those two, but i just noticed this strange fenomenon lately and didnt investigated it fully, untill now

My test was:
I locked city slots on some specific tiles, lock growth, set full Authority to get instant production,
added smokehouse, to get instant food and then i popup border growth 10 times in IGE.
Then just hit next turn, like 10+ times, until all instant yields dissapear from the instant yield view, and the graph looked like below.
So it seems, that this two, food and production, that are also re-calculated to "per city / per turn" are added properly to manufacturing and crop fields in InfoAddict graphs and
demographics. I mean, to be exact, it seems this average "per city / per turn" is added to static values correctly.
EDIT: Didnt show other graphs like culture or GNP, since, it seems instant values are not added there.

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Hey, are you sure? I just did some testing, and food and production is actually counted.
Those two stats if you look at instant yields icon, is also re-calculated to (per city / per turn).
Not sure why only those two, but i just noticed this strange fenomenon lately and didnt investigated it fully, untill now

My test was:
I locked city slots on some specific tiles, lock growth, set full Authority to get instant production,
added smokehouse, to get instant food and then i popup border growth 10 times in IGE.
Then just hit next turn, like 10+ times, until all instant yields dissapear from the instant yield view, and the graph looked like below.
So it seems, that this two, food and production, that are also re-calculated to "per city / per turn" are added properly to manufacturing and crop fields in InfoAddict graphs and
demographics. I mean, to be exact, it seems this average "per city / per turn" is added to static values correctly.
EDIT: Didnt show other graphs like culture or GNP, since, it seems instant values are not added there.
View attachment 685510
View attachment 685511
View attachment 685512

Without more details and logs I can't really comment on that, but I believe you. Since Lua calls C++ functions from the DLL, if it was done like that in VP that instant yields are added into static calculations then it'd make sense. But if only food and production are added that's kinda weird

 

[Cameomeo]

Can it be a good strategy?
Playing for non militaristic civ, to open Authority policy in the first place to get culture for killed barbarians and then forget about Authority, start and complete Progress/Tradition.

 

[statusquo]

Can it be a good strategy?
Playing for non militaristic civ, to open Authority policy in the first place to get culture for killed barbarians and then forget about Authority, start and complete Progress/Tradition.

I played like this long time ago, but i kinda think now, that is a noob trap.

BONUS 1
You get culture from barbs+camps = im guessing main reason to even consider it
Culture alone is not a game changer, unless its static, so it kinda could mitigate some early boredom, but the only
benefit besize boredom is to get policies. You sacriface one policy, to get more policies faster overall.. I mean, that is the goal, but
do you really get that much culture? I dont think so..
Culture from barbs, can let you get faster second and third policy, since their cost is relatively low, but cost grow so much so fast,
that basically every policy later will be delayed.
Killing lowest barbs doesnt get you that much yields, and this will change a little about medieval, but medieval is just too late, its not exacly "early game".
Also to utilise this, you need army, and early army means lack of some essential buildings.
The way i see it, is that early game you want just bare minimum of army, because you need eko.
Also, killing barbs drain your HP, so you need to waste turns to heal, and that is why Endurance from authority is so synergistic.
Maybe you wouldnt need it if you done bunch of skirmishers, but they are only fast in open terrian without not too much rivers.

BONUS 2
You get +1 production = ok-ish, but not really a significant number
From one hand you get 1 production, but from other you delay +3 production from progress
So in this small window of early game, you might actually get less production, since even if you bee line to +3 production from progress,
You need third policy instead of second, not to mention, you would have to spend some additional production on units.

BONUS 3
You get bonus vs barbs = quality of life
Maybe that could have sense if you gone for "raging barbarians", there would be so much of them, that would be a significant bonus.
I saw few times, that barbs could conquer even some of AIs But after tuning of barbarian spawning, normal, is just fine imo, and its kinda cheeting, since
player knows what will happen, and AI just react, so my guess is that AI response is not exacly correct to raging barbarians, but maybe this is only my "feel" of the game.

I did some small homework with InGameEditor and those are results

So over all, by the time you would normally got progress finisher, you would have to kill like 73 camps to break even, i mean obviously you woulnd need to kill barbs, but
considering, 3 barbs is equal to a camp, you would have to kill like 35-ish camps, and like 100 barbarians.. And in my personal experience, you would not be probably that lucky
If i recall correctly, Ancient and Classical camp culture are the same, and it increase in medieval to 50. So after some time its kinda getting easier, to get EXP but
as opener goes, i think you are delayed. Besize, you would have to be catching up whole game with the increased costs. Not sure if you would get away with that on Diety..
If my math is correct, the timings of 3rd and 4th policy should be similar. You waste one policy, but because costs are low, you are able to quickly catch up, but then the stairs starts.

Honestly, kinda same issue is with Fealty opener, you get monasteries, but you are delayed, so im doing of full Fealty or skip it.

Any way, its late and im tired, so if i did not took something into account, please correct me
Im curious of others opinions.

 

[Cameomeo]

I played like this long time ago, but i kinda think now, that is a noob trap.

BONUS 1
You get culture from barbs+camps = im guessing main reason to even consider it
Culture alone is not a game changer, unless its static, so it kinda could mitigate some early boredom, but the only
benefit besize boredom is to get policies. You sacriface one policy, to get more policies faster overall.. I mean, that is the goal, but
do you really get that much culture? I dont think so..
Culture from barbs, can let you get faster second and third policy, since their cost is relatively low, but cost grow so much so fast,
that basically every policy later will be delayed.
Killing lowest barbs doesnt get you that much yields, and this will change a little about medieval, but medieval is just too late, its not exacly "early game".
Also to utilise this, you need army, and early army means lack of some essential buildings.
The way i see it, is that early game you want just bare minimum of army, because you need eko.
Also, killing barbs drain your HP, so you need to waste turns to heal, and that is why Endurance from authority is so synergistic.
Maybe you wouldnt need it if you done bunch of skirmishers, but they are only fast in open terrian without not too much rivers.

BONUS 2
You get +1 production = ok-ish, but not really a significant number
From one hand you get 1 production, but from other you delay +3 production from progress
So in this small window of early game, you might actually get less production, since even if you bee line to +3 production from progress,
You need third policy instead of second, not to mention, you would have to spend some additional production on units.

BONUS 3
You get bonus vs barbs = quality of life
Maybe that could have sense if you gone for "raging barbarians", there would be so much of them, that would be a significant bonus.
I saw few times, that barbs could conquer even some of AIs But after tuning of barbarian spawning, normal, is just fine imo, and its kinda cheeting, since
player knows what will happen, and AI just react, so my guess is that AI response is not exacly correct to raging barbarians, but maybe this is only my "feel" of the game.

I did some small homework with InGameEditor and those are results

View attachment 685986
So over all, by the time you would normally got progress finisher, you would have to kill like 73 camps to break even, i mean obviously you woulnd need to kill barbs, but
considering, 3 barbs is equal to a camp, you would have to kill like 35-ish camps, and like 100 barbarians.. And in my personal experience, you would not be probably that lucky
If i recall correctly, Ancient and Classical camp culture are the same, and it increase in medieval to 50. So after some time its kinda getting easier, to get EXP but
as opener goes, i think you are delayed. Besize, you would have to be catching up whole game with the increased costs. Not sure if you would get away with that on Diety..
If my math is correct, the timings of 3rd and 4th policy should be similar. You waste one policy, but because costs are low, you are able to quickly catch up, but then the stairs starts.

Honestly, kinda same issue is with Fealty opener, you get monasteries, but you are delayed, so im doing of full Fealty or skip it.

Any way, its late and im tired, so if i did not took something into account, please correct me
Im curious of others opinions.

Great analysis, thanx for that!
Anyways, you didn't mention 2 crucial things:
1. With the Authority opener you can send your scouts to distant areas to clear barb camps for city states in order to become friends with them. One upgraded scout is fine vs barb warrior when clearing a camp, but without this policy it is often a problem.
2. Culture is earned in battles against other civs, not only barbarians.

 

[statusquo]

1. With the Authority opener you can send your scouts to distant areas to clear barb camps for city states in order to become friends with them. One upgraded scout is fine vs barb warrior when clearing a camp, but without this policy it is often a problem.

Forgot to tell one crucial thing, i always turn off ruins xD
With production and extra extra units for the AI, i felt, like its anothers AIs advantage, also, its too much radnomnes.
But for this strategy to have sense, imo, you would have to hit, scout upgrade from the hut.
What you were saying is like a short term strategy, that is why i said im curious of others opinions.
Its numbers game, and after many game my intuition says its not worth it over all, but if you make it work, then.. it works

Honestly, to be sure you would have to make few "test games" or at least write down how many camps and barbs or units you kill, let say first 100 turns.
If you played your game with unlimited autosaves, you could open them and check, starting from taking Authority opener, and open every next 10 turns, and check
the silver star icon, for instant yields, this is attempt to compare statics yields to instnt yields, and it shows you total amounts of instant yields from 10 turns, so, if you
check it every 10 turns, previous instan will be removed, and only the total from the next 10 turns will remain, but this will be kinda broken by Progress opener, so im guessing,
you just have to somehow gather the data. Hmm, maybe you can do it semi reliably from notiffication view, not sure how much buffer they have.. or.. hmmm, even better
Save game and press "retire", there should be full log of the game, it may be hard to read and easy to miss something, but you should have full data there.
Not sure thou, if killing units is there, i honestly never read it with the intent to take some practical information from it

2. Culture is earned in battles against other civs, not only barbarians.

Yea, but 6th vs 7th policy is a lot, and this is adding up for the whole game. 10th become 11th etc.. it also breaks your ideology, since, instead take second
policy from ideology, you will have to do a finisher from Rationalism let say. Not to mention, you are losing value as you dont make wars.
If your plan is to make wars, why not take full Authority with Endurance and Discipline?
As third policy tree I usually do Rationalism opener+observatories, Imperialismy opener+monopolies, and then i have 2 policies to be elastic, so if you would
have such a hybrid approach, you could stop taking normal policies and just go on with ideologies.
Its just a numbers game, and i never gather actual data from the games, to understand how much its actually is.
Such approach would be definately synergistic if you would be able to snipe Terracota Army.

EDIT: just noticed, since you are constantly killing units, you basically on some point could lead to situation, that you basically need to "cover" only the
increased cost of policies (difference betwen current and next, which is usually about 20%-ish ), so as a rule of thumb you could use that between any policy
taken, you should kill 60 units or 20 camps, to break even. All that effort, and you have to constantly fight for it for the rest of the game, not wort it imo
Besize, endurance also gives you same amount of Science, so if you will get that much of culture, why would you resign with same amount of science..
And we are back with full Authority Choices, choices
Btw, i think it also depends on what difficulty are you playing, on King and Emperor, you could make anything work
Im learning diety, and my a$$ is kicked on regular basis, so im still probably make many mistakes.

EDIT: Btw, if you like, quite viaable opener is progress into authority, Milae plays with it in his last game with Sweden, you can check it.
Thou, if the whole purpose is to make it your scouts take barb camps, its not doing that

 

[usadefcon1]

Where can I see how much science yield my spy is stealing per turn?

 

[AndreyK]

Where can I see how much science yield my spy is stealing per turn?

There are notification pops every turn

 

[Thibix Magnus]

silly random question: of course it is land-dependent but which civ is generally the best at making the biggest capital aztecs, india or venice?

 

[Anarcomu]

Arguably Venice endgame (population-wise), if you get a lot of puppets, invest on ITR bonuses and use all your (doubled) trade routes to feed the Capital.
Don't know if it is a good strategy though.
I might run a test game just to see what I can get.

 

[azum4roll]

The extreme case should be wide India with TwoKay Foods, Fealty, Industry, Nationalism and Iron Curtain, using all trade routes to send food to the capital.

 

[Cesare Rubinio]

Hi, I was wondering if there's a way to play with VP on a map of Earth with real starting positions

 

[Cameomeo]

1. Why do other AI civs give me gold presents sometimes? Do I achieve somth by giving presents to them?
2. What is the connection between gold outcome of villages & towns and trade routes passing through them?
3. Where can I find some music mods?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

1. Why do other AI civs give me gold presents sometimes? Do I achieve somth by giving presents to them?
2. What is the connection between gold outcome of villages & towns and trade routes passing through them?
3. Where can I find some music mods?

1. Because they are friendly to you and consider you as an ally. Yes, you'll receive positive diplomatic opinion boost with them.
2. They will yield more gold if trade routes are passing through them.
3. Here is one: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/music-mod.31166/
I don't know about more, but maybe there are.

 

[Timur512]

Hi everyone, does it exist a Global Relations mod, remade specially for Vox Populi?
Because origing one in steam workshop does have several bugs, for example in VP every owning resource counts like 2 res in resourse overwiew in Global Relations tables

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Hi everyone, does it exist a Global Relations mod, remade specially for Vox Populi?
Because origing one in steam workshop does have several bugs, for example in VP every owning resource counts like 2 res in resourse overwiew in Global Relations tables

I'm not sure what that mod does, but Infoaddict has a relations graph which is really good, also there is this modmod which has a similar relations graph, among other things:

Trade Opportunities for VP

TRADE OPPORTUNITIES FOR VP @whoward69's Trade Opportunities mod modified for VP. List of main changes: - all resources (VP, other mods) are reordered (alphabethically) and grouped (by improvement required) with special new header indicating that group; - totally new colours for every detail...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[frktest]

I am pretty sure that some times ago, to move a unit I kept the right mouse button pushed to point the position where to move and the unit actually moved only when I released the button. That way allowed to find the best move.
Now the units do move right when I click the right mouse button on n hex.. Does that implemented with a new VP issue? or does that due to my pc?
Is there a way to step back to the previous pointing method?
Thanks for a response

 

[4CV]

I am pretty sure that some times ago, to move a unit I kept the right mouse button pushed to point the position where to move and the unit actually moved only when I released the button. That way allowed to find the best move.
Now the units do move right when I click the right mouse button on n hex.. Does that implemented with a new VP issue? or does that due to my pc?
Is there a way to step back to the previous pointing method?
Thanks for a response

Just tried it, and it still works the old way. I play latest beta. Maybe you have some mod conflict(?) Or a hardware problem with mouse??