[Vote] (1-08) Proposal: Buffs to Engineer specialists

[Recursive]

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VP Congress: Session 1, Proposal 8
Proposer: @balparmak
Sponsor(s): @balparmak
Previous Discussion Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/14-proposal-buffs-to-engineer-specialists.679044/

Proposal Details
Engineer specialists are too costly for what they provide now, and they quickly fall off in comparison to mines. I propose:
- Engineer specialists gain +2 (instead of +1) production at Industrialization and +1 production at Ballistics. Reason: There's a pattern of engineer bonuses coming in a tier later than mine bonuses, this establishes consistency.
- Engineer specialists gain +2 production with Forge. Reason: Forge provides the same bonuses to mines, which makes them a lot more worthy. Giving the same bonus to the engineer will help cities without/with few mines, especially island cities. By giving it through a building instead of a technology, we still make the initial turns hard, but the city gets a significant return to investment made for the forge.

Rather than being a significant buff, this keeps engineer specialists on par, production-wise, with mines. Mines can still enjoy various other resource, policy, faith buffs, and obviously consume no food. Engineer specialists may need more buffs, but anything more drastic than this would require a lengthy discussion, this should be a good starting point.

 

[Slyceth]

I don't know enough about engineer specialists, I usually let it auto pick production focus. What I do know is that production is fine as it is, even worse, the production is sometimes too good that I just end up building all buildings and even maxing out my military cap.

The worst part of the game is moving tens or hundreds of units EVERY TURN. The AI can perfectly calculate attacks within minutes (can you program them to perform war for you? haha just wondering) and with higher production this particular problem becomes worse for the player and the AI. Nothing worse than seeing 20 ships that you need 40 of your ships to take out.

 

[CppMaster]

he AI can perfectly calculate attacks within minutes (can you program them to perform war for you? haha just wondering)

That would be great!

 

[balparmak]

I don't know enough about engineer specialists, I usually let it auto pick production focus. What I do know is that production is fine as it is, even worse, the production is sometimes too good that I just end up building all buildings and even maxing out my military cap.

The worst part of the game is moving tens or hundreds of units EVERY TURN. The AI can perfectly calculate attacks within minutes (can you program them to perform war for you? haha just wondering) and with higher production this particular problem becomes worse for the player and the AI. Nothing worse than seeing 20 ships that you need 40 of your ships to take out.

Yeah production is certainly the king, and it's actually one of the reasons behind this proposal. If your city has mines, you're great. If not (i.e. lots of flat land, island city etc.) there's little you can do as engineer specialists aren't even worth a non-resource Mine, all the while gobbling up lots of food. With these buffs they're pretty much on par production-wise, so you can at least get your city going with engineers at a significant food/growth cost.
Of course this proposal could've gone the other way by nerfing other sources of production instead of buffing specialists, but that would have a lot more impact on balance. Deserves a discussion&proposal though, now that they're on par, they could lose some of the bonuses. I'd rather keep the Forge bonus (maybe lower it to +1) though, Engineer specs have no buildings boosting them unlike other specialists, and that'S more interesting than global tech bonuses.

 

[GoreBush]

Specialists overall is not as productive as regular laborers is, especially for that amount of food that they consumes. But it nearly ok as long as they provide you Great Peoples and utilizes some amounts of extra food in large cities.
I think Issue with engineers is not that they are weak, but Manufactory is weak comparing with Academy and Town. +6 gold +2 food Town ( and bonuses from trade routes and connections ) and +6 science Academy is a far more desirable improvements than a +6 prod Manufactory. Culture and science yields is not a regular yields and emprirically costs twice comparing with such regular yields as food, production and gold that you collects literrally from the ground.
Why should i prefer 6 prod Manufactory over 6 science Academy if regular mine provide me nearly same amount of production ( especially with industrial civics ) while science is somewhat special and difficult to obtain?
Because of this engineers usually my lowest tier specialists. Manufactories need some initial buff and some buffs through technologies/buildings. And maybe some buff via industrial branch Entrepreneurship civic that provides extra yields for mines, quarries and lumber mills to provide relative Manufactory value comparing with regular mines/quarries ( but in this case we maybe also need some buffs for Academies/Towns via Rationalism/Imperialism branches for balance purposes ).

PS high food low prod cities problem always solves by prod internal trade routes for me.

 

[tyranthym]

if the mine is too good then fix the mine, the prodution itself is already too good and late game I feel we don't need more since I can already build everything in multiple big cities now.

 

[GoreBush]

if the mine is too good then fix the mine, the prodution itself is already too good and late game I feel we don't need more since I can already build everything in multiple big cities now.

I always feel that +2 forge boost for mines is quite desireable for me and forge is a top-tier building. On the other hand we have farm and lumbermill adjacency mechanic and it feels ok comparing with this mines. Not sure about this. At least personally i never meet situation my cities dont have anything to build at high difficulties. Wonders, buildings, units, emissaries and, finally, converting processes - i always have to do.

 

[tyranthym]

ok I mean every major building on multiple cities. Also it seems to me AI can easily build every buildings in most of cities, not just large ones. Considering VP wants to prolong the victory timing in next few patches, any change that increases the output should be carefully treated, instead I think we should propose to decrease most of the output in this game. it's already exploded

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, you literally cannot run out of things to produce with processes and public works.

 

[balparmak]

There are few things to unpack here:
- If AI has too much production, that's another issue and AI's bonuses should be nerfed (they won't have instant production yields in the next version afaik)
- I kinda put the blame on mines myself, but I shouldn't have done that. I can't confidently say if mines are the cause of production inflation (or if there's an inflation), what I can/do say is a specialist shouldn't be worse than a basic improvement. And even with all these buffs, Mines are still better because they don't reduce your growth and may provide various other bonuses. That's the good thing with specialists, they are already checked by their food cost - if you use too many engineers, you are trading growth for production, it provides an option. Similar to sending an internal production route, you have an option with trade-offs, nice to have that. Sure you could use engineers before the buffs, but then you are choosing the bad option, this balances them.
- I agree that Manufactory also needs a boost, and I'll probably propose it in the next session: (probably use my modmod values, you can check it here). Or rather, open up a discussion thread on the status of production, maybe we'll nerf the other production sources instead

 

[ma_kuh]

Laborers are also pretty much never a consideration for a population slot in my experience, maybe there's something to try with them being lighter on their food penalties compared to other specialists, or something else? It would let you try and force production for mid-game cities that you don't necessarily want to grow too quickly anyway, but that haven't been able to build their forges yet.

 

[Rekk]

Laborers are also pretty much never a consideration for a population slot in my experience, maybe there's something to try with them being lighter on their food penalties compared to other specialists, or something else? It would let you try and force production for mid-game cities that you don't necessarily want to grow too quickly anyway, but that haven't been able to build their forges yet.

Laborers already don't cost more food than citizens on tiles. I guess they'd need to be free?

 

[CrazyG]

Laborers are also pretty much never a consideration for a population slot in my experience, maybe there's something to try with them being lighter on their food penalties compared to other specialists, or something else? It would let you try and force production for mid-game cities that you don't necessarily want to grow too quickly anyway, but that haven't been able to build their forges yet.

I occasionally use laborers in the very early game. I don't think they are intended to be a useful option, just a backup for unusual circumstances, like if an army is occupying many tiles, if you grow to enormous sizes.

 

[ma_kuh]

I thought laborers had the same food-cost malus as specialists? If they're the same as having someone on a tile then never mind, the only way to make them useful (as opposed to a fallback when occupied) would be for most substantive buffs, and that might not be the right direction.

 

[nekokon]

Laborers are unemployed bunch, which practically should affect your happiness but that would be dogpiling on it too much when city under siege so ppl left it alone.

 

[Stalker0]

I thought laborers had the same food-cost malus as specialists? If they're the same as having someone on a tile then never mind, the only way to make them useful (as opposed to a fallback when occupied) would be for most substantive buffs, and that might not be the right direction.

they have the normal -2 food as a regular workers. they do NOT have the extra food cost of specialists

 

[Recursive]

Proposal passed on November 1, 2022.