1.13 First Impressions

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Basically, I want production and gold to have roughly equal value (so as to have meaningful decisions about which tiles to work, which specialists to get, which improvements to build, which social policies to adopt), but different strengths and weaknesses.

Production has many weaknesses: it requires pre-planning for you to know what you want (you don't get it for several turns, and you have to commit - can't retroactively switch what you were working on and credit it to something else); you can't start building until you have the tech so your infrastructure will lag tech, it can't easily be pooled or spread across cities
It's only real advantage is that it's basically the only way to get wonders.

Gold has many advantages: it gets you want you want instantly, it requires no pre-planning, it has huge flexibility, it can be used for lots of purposes (buying units or buildings, gifting city states, spending on opportunities, upgrading units, buying tiles, paying upkeep). It can be accumulated and shared across cities.
It has so many different advantages and uses, it really needs a downside.

So production *has* to be more efficient in order for it to be meaningful as a resource. Otherwise it is just second tier to gold.

Further things that complicate the relationship are that:
a) villages have higher yields than mines or mills, both as a base (1 gold 1 science vs 1 production) and gets earlier/more bonuses from techs or policies.
b) gold multipliers (banks, etc.) are larger than production multipliers.

In terms of fun: I think Teirusu is on the right track. It's fun to feel like you're gaining an efficiency advantage from delaying gratification, from really investing in something rather than just pushing a "buy now" button. If I am willing to put up with all the downsides of production, that ought to get me something.

I couldn't agree more to everything Ahriman wrote.
Gold > production and the connected village > mine problem are heavy balance issues.
Just take a look at the modifiers for gold and production:

Gold:
Market +20% (tier2)
Mint +30 % (t4)
Bank +50% (t7)
=+100 % gold on t7 (early rennaisance)!

Production in comparison gets:
Smithy (t5) +20%
Blast furnace (t5) +20% only on units
Work Shop (t9) +20% only buildings
Factory (t10) +25% needs coal
S-Plant (t13) +25% only desert
A-Plant (t14) +50% needs uranium

That's only a general +45% after late industrial. (The prod-buildigs get +x hammers extra, but doesn't make mines more valuable.)

So every gold piece gets way earlier doubled in value than every hammer gets even 150% of it's worth. Add protectionism and perhaps Big Ben and buildings are easier/cheaper to buy than build. And buying has many advantages over building.

I think the buying modifiers (x3 for military, x2 for most buildings) are really good, but there should be some changes to the way gold and prod get created. Some suggestions:
- An earlier/extra SP for mine-boni
- remove extra yield from village
- change one of the early gold buildings (mint I would say) away from modifier to something else (extra gold on ressources or rivers or from trade so its usefull even for production-economy like stock exchange) or move it to the later game (there is a huge gap between bank and stock exchanges)
- +50% from banks seems really strong for an early midgame building
- add a tier 2/3 prod building with +x%, workshop on t8 and better or more general
- add science to mines and villages with the knowledge-SP

Goal: Gold is way more variable than prod and faster/better at getting "stuff" so it should always be much more expensive to buy thinks.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Teirusu
Thank you for explaining your thoughts about how production makes cities feel self-sufficient. That makes sense! I think I understand now. I like to micromanage everything, so I'd never considered the perspective of cities that can basically handle themselves without outside interference. In the weeks ahead I will think about how to merge this viewpoint with my overall goals. Thanks again.

@GMO
Earlier versions of Civilization had the capability to partially rush construction, but this version does not.

@JJAckus
Here you go! Sorry for the delay, I was deeply involved in some complicated programming tasks the past few days.

http://www.mediafire.com/?rqwhos5odcaaax2
http://www.mediafire.com/?oqng1nqkmgy4y4o

@gdwitt
The Pyramids, Stonehenge, and other megaprojects were built as national efforts moving people and resources from one location to another. A realistic game would allow anything to build with national effort, especially wonders. Civ represents this national movement of supplies with gold. It's important to avoid thinking of it as literally gold coins, like how a warrior is not just 3 warriors. These are abstractions of more complex concepts.

@Bernd-das-Brot
I was also thinking of ways to make production more available in the early game. We could move the Smithy left two techs to Bronze Working?

 

[Brannock]

Finished a full game of 1.13 yesterday as Babylon, on King and Epic speed, Diplomatic Victory. Have had about 6-8 different half-games on various settings throughout the week. Couple things I noticed:

*CN Tower still refers to getting "free Broadcast Tower", not Radio Station.

*Terracotta Army rarely has felt interesting or useful for me. I almost always pick Stonehenge over Army. Early Faith is very powerful, and an early religion can have powerful repercussions for the entire game. If I could actually build it in a reasonable time in non-capital cities then I would consider picking it up - expansion cities early game often have a rough time picking up tiles and the automatic border expansion would be very useful if you're on a crowded continent. Production times tend to be double or triple what I can get from my capital though, which means the AI will usually beat my expansion city to Terracotta Army.

*Barbarians are enormously annoying to deal with and were annoying to deal with throughout the entire game. They upgrade to swordsmen and chariot archers fairly early on, and I feel like the spawn rate is higher than it used to be. Occasionally I'd go and clear out an area of barbarians, then move on, but five turns later they'll respawn in often the exact same spot. (Raging barbarians mode was not on.)

*Tech advancements for military feels weird late game. You can do a full upgrade of your entire military force by picking up only one or two techs in each of the last three eras. Given that you're producing Science at a very respectable rate by the present-day eras and given the relatively straightforward tech path, it means I can tech out my entire army in only one or two dozen turns. Not sure if this is really an issue or not: by trying to slingshot my military I'm neglecting my civilian techs and can run into resource/gold issues.

 

[Ahriman]

I almost always pick Stonehenge over Army. Early Faith is very powerful, and an early religion can have powerful repercussions for the entire gam

I agree; I find Stonehenge incredibly powerful, but a large part of this is also that I can finish Liberty early and get a free great prophet from the finisher with which to found a super-early religion. Stonehenge gets me the Faith for an early pantheon and then a fairly early missionary, and so my religion can start spreading like wildfire.

Is there any way that we could exclude great prophets from the Liberty Finisher? It's really unbalancing.

 

[JJackus]

Thanks so much, Thal! I'll be sure to make backups in the future before updating so I don't have to come bug you in case I ever feel the need to return to a certain version

It's really quite silly that there's no way to downpatch through Steam Workshop...

 

[mitsho]

Agree on Stonehenge + Liberty Finisher. I could see making Stonehenge a Turn-0 wonder that only gives the instant . After all, Stonehenge is very early in the timeline of civilization (~2200 BC).

The Free Great Person is powerful in any case. If we exclude the Great Prophet (which I agree on), the most popular choice would be the Great Engineer for a Wonder, no? Maybe a wholly different finisher effect would be better anyways.

Not sure how to make Terracotta Army better, maybe it should really be placed on Pottery, true to the name. But I think the effect is fine, as it was in VEM, it's just that we now have so many more options in GEM (City Hall, Palace, Religion, ...).

 

[Ahriman]

If we exclude the Great Prophet (which I agree on), the most popular choice would be the Great Engineer for a Wonder, no?

I think that'd be fine. A single wonder isn't game-breakingly powerful, but a religion that starts 50 turns faster than other religions is going to spread a long way further.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

On early faith:
I would prefer something like this:
Shrine +2 faith, artist, 1 maintenance, 80-90 hammers
temple +3 faith, +0,2 per pop, 180-200 hammers, extra on wine/incese, 1-2 main
+5 from Stonehenge, +2-4 from religious natural wonders
+1 per village with religious settlements (this is crazy strong at the moment - each village like a shrine!)
First GProphet for 200

If the goal is still to make the numbers of yields equal, this might be even better:
shrine +3; temple +6/7 + 0,3; stonehenge +9/10, natural wonders as now, +1 per village
First GProphet for 300

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Gold > production and the connected village > mine problem are heavy balance issues, I think. So I thought about changes and here are some specific suggestions.
Generally villages should be more flexible in what yields they produce (per different SPs, and dependend on the terrain you put them on) and what to do with their main-yield gold (which can be spend in different ways).
Mines on the other hand should be better in their raw production power.

Village (now in version 1.13.2)
+1 gold +1 science (tier 1)
+1 gold on fresh water (t 2)
+1 gold without fresh water (t8)
+1 gold from Patent Law (t5+ SP)
+1 science Free Thought (t7+ SP)
+1 culture Free Speech (t9+ SP)
+1 faith with Rel. Settlements (Pantheon)
+2 science, -1 food when built on jungle (with university)

Villages have the flexibility to be build on any terrain. On grass with +2 food, on plains for +1 food +1 production or on hills for +2 production.

Mines (in version 1.13.2)
+1 prod (tier 1)
+1 prod on fresh water (t3)
+1 prod without fresh water (t7)
+1 prod on industrialization (t10)
+1 prod on labor union (t9+ SP)

Mines can only be built on hills, which are often limited in number, (and some ressource tiles), always getting +2 production.

In the earlygame villages have 2 yields, mines only one.
With some investment (2 SPs) villages get +5 yields by midgame (t7/8), +6 with Rel. Settlements. Mines in comparison have 2 yields.
In late game villages can get 7/8 yields with another SP. Mines have 4 yields with investing in one SP.

To make mines more attractive I suggest this:
- Remove science on village (for science on villages we have Free Thought)
- Move +1 from prod without fresh water from gunpowder (t7) to steel (t6) or even metal casting (t5) (mines are weak midgame until industrialization)
- add +1 gold on mines to any commerce SP or +1 gold on dynamite or gunpowder
- or make labor union +1 prod and +1 culture on mines

So maximized villages would be 3 gold, 1 (3 with jungle) science, 1 culture, (1faith) and mines 4 prod, 1 culture or gold.


As stated in an earlier post (on the same page) gold gets way more/higher modifiers then production, making mines even weaker in comparison. I tried to give gold and prod balanced modifiers and toned the numbers a bit down in general:

Early/mid Production buildings:
Smithy moved to Bronze working (t2): +10% prod, +2 prod, +1 on iron/copper/silver?/gold?), 1 engineer
Barracks removed engineer, added +10% prod on land units
Blast Furnace (t5) +15% prod, +3 prod, engineer, +1 on coal/iron?/copper?
Armory removed prod, added + 10% prod on land units
Workshop moved to metallurgy (t8) +10% prod, +10% prod on buildings, engineer (from Military Academy)

Gold buildings:
Market (t2): +15-20%, +1 on luxury, merchant
Mint (t4): +10%, +0,25 per Pop (or -10% cost for buying units/buildings in this city), merchant, +1 on gold/silver/gems
Bank (t7): +20-25%, Merchant
Stock Exchange (t12): +20%, +0,25 per Pop, 1 Merchant

To be completed...

 

[mystikx21]

I like the general setup proposed there. I am testing my own economic changes tomorrow and might use most of those alongside. (some are pretty close to what I had in mind).

I would have the smith improve iron and copper. Furnace improve coal (and perhaps iron). Mint improve copper, gold, gems, silver. Factory and exchanges can improve the late game strategics. I would consider adding something to quarries as well besides stone works. Adding gold or culture to mines should probably be only from SPs. Oil wells or quarries or plantations could use some gold (pastures and camps more food).

For late game production buildings, I would back them off to no more than 20% and 4-5 raw production. Military academy could add 10% for any units (not just land)? I would also back down warehouses to 25% from 50. I think production would be competitive enough if gold multipliers came down from 100 and villages are in a better balance with mines.

Both should be in some balance with pastures and camps and such as well.

 

[JJackus]

@Thalassicus Gah, don't mean to bother you again but...

It seems that, although your upload was labeled GEM 1.12.2 and CivUP 2.3.2, the content seems to indicate that is in fact GEM 1.13 and CivUP 2.4! I checked the files and found that was indeed the case. It seems to be the update from January 18. I double and triple-checked that I didn't accidentally replace what you uploaded with another version, and it would seem not. This version contains the Palace and Capitol Buildings, and the different base city yields, etc as verified in the game files. Could you double check you didn't mislabel something or upload the wrong version?

 

[Hawawaa]

Just a random thought to improve religions getting started faster. If you have a religion and you build say shrines, temples, and religious wonders in cities without a religion it converts some of the citizens.

Seriously a rock and a hard place this game...

Spoiler :

 

[Ahriman]

@Bernd-das-Brot
I was also thinking of ways to make production more available in the early game. We could move the Smithy left two techs to Bronze Working?

I don't really think this addresses the issues. I think the issues need to be addressed by:
a) Increasing the gold purchase cost multiplier to make gold a bit less efficient.
b) Removing the base science from villages.

 

[Ahriman]

Another thing I noticed: the changes in the yields of early culture buildings. Monuments only now give +3 culture, theaters +4 (down from +4, +6).
It seems that dedicated culture buildings now provide only a small portion of my culture as compared to that from policies or pantheons or other sources, and really have little impact in general on social policies or border expansion (which feels quite slow). Overall these buildings feel quite weak now. I find it a bit strange that some buildings were dramatically buffed (the Smithy is very strong now) while others were significantly weakened.

I also wonder if to address the early game issues, if we get culture from a great hall with no tech, how about moving the monument to Mining (which is rather barren at the moment)? That makes some logical/realism sense.

 

[mystikx21]

I wasn't sure about the culture changes either. I expected that reducing the culture accumulated (across the board) would be balanced with cultural costs, but that doesn't appear to be the case (this requires a lot more modification to undo or adjust than other changes because culture is everywhere, beliefs, policies, buildings, wonders, CS, etc). It also heavily altered the value of landmarks, holy sites, and the multiplier buildings later in the tier while making the early tiers with raw culture much weaker.

The previous setup seemed fine and the problem with culture as a yield was simply that it eventually stopped doing anything other than adding new policies faster. Once your city has taken all tiles and begun expanding to further rings it has no local advantage where it did in civ4 for altering borders peacefully. This is much like faith only being useful for buying GPs at some point as well.

 

[Ahriman]

I expected that reducing the culture accumulated (across the board) would be balanced with cultural costs, but that doesn't appear to be the case (this requires a lot more modification to undo or adjust than other changes because culture is everywhere, beliefs, policies, buildings, wonders, CS, etc). It also heavily altered the value of landmarks, holy sites, and the multiplier buildings later in the tier while making the early tiers with raw culture much weaker.

The previous setup seemed fine...

Agreed. I was surprised by the change, when so many other buildings were boosted.

the problem with culture as a yield was simply that it eventually stopped doing anything other than adding new policies faster. Once your city has taken all tiles and begun expanding to further rings it has no local advantage

I really don't find this to be a problem. It takes a very long time to take all local tiles (typically this only happens in the late game), and even then there is sometimes a modest advantage from gaining control of additional territory to get extra resources, to build a bigger military buffer zone where the enemy must declare ware before entering, and to deny territory to the enemy or reserve it for your own later use. And culture is mostly about social policy generation.

 

[mystikx21]

I don't think it's a "problem", but it's the only yield that changes from having local use to mostly strategic, which makes it different to balance than the others.

Tradition makes it pretty easy to rapidly take up all the local tiles for core cities. What's left over is late game expansion, and far-away tile value, which is more easily paid for by having the Kremlin wonder, and again, tradition helps with excess border tiles. I find I've usually got most of the cultural borders filled out to row 4-5 by the industrial era for many cities and am just soaking in water tiles and random boundaries. At that point, culture, like faith, has limited local use but still has a good strategic use. That it only generates new policies for me is not a problem, but it means that its local utility for say, tiles or multipliers, is different than examining those of gold or production.

 

[Ahriman]

I guess my perspective is that I've always thought of culture as mostly generating about social policies, with the border expansion as a secondary effect. So it doesn't bother me that the local effect eventually becomes minimal or goes away.

Culture works far better here than in Civ4, because once you have the BFC covered culture has almost no value beyond border cities; in Civ4 culture in the core of your empire is literally useless unless you're pursuing cultural victory. I really like that Civ5 makes culture valuable for everyone through social policies, and that a cultural victory is something that gives you bonuses along the way not just at the end.

 

[mystikx21]

Fair enough, but in either case, we are agreed the change to monuments and amphitheaters seems excessive (Museums I believe were fine to reduce to .5 instead of 1 per pop, along with changing Radio towers to 50% instead of 33%).

Changes to culture all around seem incomplete, which further skews the analysis. Artists still grant 4 . Fascism remained at the same levels while honor was reduced. National Epic still granted 10 while Oracle/Terracotta/Hagia Sophia were reduced. Cathedrals remained at 6. Landmarks and Holy Sites were untouched (Holy Sites I believe need to be moved down on culture). Etc. This is an issue with culture being everywhere, it's hard to keep track of everywhere it needed to be reduced if that was the plan. I think we were better off leaving it up where it was and adjusting balance of pantheons/beliefs and the costs of policies or terrain as needed.

 

[Stalker0]

Its also important to note that Hermitage provides a free policy now. I'm curious to see how the breakdown is, but I would bet for a smart player going culture getting the hermitage right at the end game to bag another policy is probably worth a boatload of culture.