[Vote] (3-08) Proposal: Normalize Ancient Era maintenance costs

[ma_kuh]

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VP Congress: Session 3, Proposal 8
Original proposal:

[Vote] - (1-23) Early Game Building Proposals

Voting Instructions Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options. All votes are public. If you wish, you can...

forums.civfanatics.com

Current situation:
Buildings in Ancient Era with no maintenance cost:

• The Tradition buildings (sort of a gimme, but thought I'd be thorough)
• Council
• Ger (Lodge does have maintenance)
• Herbalist (Longhouse does have maintenance, but it's a bug)
• Market (and Bazaar) (again a gimme, because they produce gold instead)
• Monument
• Shrine (and Stele)

Proposal:
Add 1 maintenance cost to Ger, and Herbalist. For consistency's sake, these buildings deserve maintenance costs.

Of the three early-game food boosters, Herbalist is the only one without a maintenance cost. This puts it out of place with other buildings generally, and is an unnecessary buff to the building's purpose specifically. Many cities fall into one of three simple categories: the food resources around them are primarily 1) camps, 2) farms, or 3) plantations (bananas, but also many luxuries). Of these groups, Lodge and Granary cities need to pay upkeep on their food enhancer; Herbalist does not. On top of that, many plantation resources also grant gold for improvement, so I would wager the difference between early-game gold per turn varies quite a lot based on which foods you're forced to exploit. In my opinion, this is why herbalist should not have the special treatment of being maintenance-free.

As a unique Lodge, the Ger should still have a maintenance cost. I don't see a compelling reason why Ger deserves a hidden +1 for a military civ, while Longhouse does not. I'll leave it to a counter-proposal to argue the opposite: that both Ger and Longhouse (and presumably Tabya and Ikanda) deserve a relative +1 compared to their standard buildings.

 

[pineappledan]

Should add that maintenance for Iroquois Longhouse should be increased too. I would also add Maintenance to Lodge/Mongol Ger.

These are situational buildings, as designed, with relatively small costs. They should continue to contribute some maintenance burden so that they at least present some trade-off. Otherwise they are at minimum free yields on construction triggers.

 

[ma_kuh]

I must have misread the original proposal for lodge, I thought it had 1 maintenance; I guess it adds 1 instead? I'll need to check in-game later, but I agree they should all have maintenance costs. They're all situational, but in general each one is stronger when the others are weaker, so it's not like you build none of them in a city. Having a subtle gold advantage based on which food profile fits your city seems off.

 

[ma_kuh]

Okay, double checked some numbers. In terms of Ancient Era buildings, everything has -1 maintenance except:

• The Tradition buildings (sort of a gimme, but thought I'd be thorough)
• Council
• Ger (Lodge does have maintenance)
• Herbalist (Longhouse does have maintenance)
• Market (and Bazaar) (again a gimme, because they produce gold instead)
• Monument
• Shrine (and Stele)

Of these, Council and Herbalist stick out as non-Agriculture buildings that are breaking the mold. Civilization unique buildings strike me as an acceptable exception; after all, unique tile improvements don't ask for maintenance to be used. Not a hill I'd die on though. If Ger was allowed to be maintenance free, I'd advocate for adding Tabya (Songhai's unique Stoneworks) and Longhouse (Iroquois unique Lodge).

So I guess my open question to the community is: should we also add maintenance to the council while we're re-normalizing this? And a follow-up: should monument and shrine also have maintenance? I'm updating the OP to include Ger and Council on the list with Herbalist, because consistency is the goal, but I'm interested in arguments for why lack-of-maintenance is a balance rationale for Mongolia or Iroquois, if any.

 

[Stalker0]

Nope, nope nope nope

 

[ma_kuh]

I'm shocked by your response.
If these were the wild days of Session 1, I'd write a counter proposal to my own proposal that removed the maintenance cost from Granary, Lodge, Longhouse, and Well. Then at least all the 65 buildings would be consistent.

 

[cidk2000]

no thank you, gold is scarce early game by rights maintenance of buildings in ancient ages required materials not gold in fact gold maintenance should start at currency imo but for immersion sake and it bieng a game of course i like the current model as it is later game its another story ..

 

[Stalker0]

no thank you, gold is scarce early game by rights maintenance of buildings in ancient ages required materials not gold in fact gold maintenance should start at currency imo but for immersion sake and it bieng a game of course i like the current model as it is later game its another story ..

I agree. While gold may be glutting later in the game, its not right at the beginning. Maintenance free is one of the really nice benefits of the council and helps you get some infrastructure up without paying a huge bill at that point. Its especially important for authority plays, which often do struggle a lot with gold early (I often runs negatives when I'm doing early warring, having to rely on tribute's free gold to get me afloat).

On the herbalist. Is the herbalist overperforming in some way, are people building them like candy now? I'm not myself, they are still good in their niche but not as a general building. I believe in nerfs if we need to address a balance issue, not because some other building has something so now this building just HAS to have that same thing....I think that is a terrible way to balance. Are we going to add maintenance costs to gold buildings next in the interest of keeping all buildings the same?

 

[pineappledan]

I don’t think it’s necessary to add maintenance to the council, I just think the lodge and herbalist need it.

If they are to be perceived as niche buildings to be built if you have the camp/plantations to justify them, then they need to have maintenance cost. Otherwise they are free buildings and there is no reason not to have them everywhere

 

[CppMaster]

They are not free, they at least require production. Besides councils are so good that maybe they need gold maintance to balance it out, so they are not OP for their cost.

 

[ma_kuh]

On the herbalist. Is the herbalist overperforming in some way, are people building them like candy now? I'm not myself, they are still good in their niche but not as a general building. I believe in nerfs if we need to address a balance issue, not because some other building has something so now this building just HAS to have that same thing....I think that is a terrible way to balance. Are we going to add maintenance costs to gold buildings next in the interest of keeping all buildings the same?

Many cities fall into one of three simple categories: the food resources around them are primarily 1) camps, 2) farms, or 3) plantations (bananas, but also many luxuries). Of these groups, Lodge and Granary cities need to pay upkeep on their food enhancer; herbalist does not. On top of that, many plantation resources also grant gold for improvement, so I would wager the difference between early-game gold per turn varies quite a lot based on which foods you're forced to exploit. In my opinion, this is why herbalist should not have the special treatment of being maintenance-free. It's not that you build herbalist beside lodge and granary so it needs gating, it's that it's the only one of the three that doesn't have the gold gate at all.

I agree that in the early game, gold management is a factor. But I find it hard to hear arguments that claim gold as a resource is both limiting in the early game, but that the Market is a weak building. If you need more money to feed upkeep costs, then the Market and Trade Routes are the tools for that. They already exist. I think people want to tunnel on science and culture and claim they are king, but then completely neglect the possibility that increasing the cost of these things will by default increase the value of alternate yields.

I agree. While gold may be glutting later in the game, its not right at the beginning. Maintenance free is one of the really nice benefits of the council and helps you get some infrastructure up without paying a huge bill at that point. Its especially important for authority plays, which often do struggle a lot with gold early (I often runs negatives when I'm doing early warring, having to rely on tribute's free gold to get me afloat).

I don’t think it’s necessary to add maintenance to the council, I just think the lodge and herbalist need it.

If they are to be perceived as niche buildings to be built if you have the camp/plantations to justify them, then they need to have maintenance cost. Otherwise they are free buildings and there is no reason not to have them everywhere

Regarding the Council in particular, I do think structural consistency is the bedrock of balance. Digging into why the Council deserves to be an exception, I see that having a Council is a gateway to actually having a science economy. There's no gameplan where you want to delay it, and there's no alternative method for generating the science with a trade-off, or a different niche building. So adding an upkeep cost isn't strictly necessary; I buy that. However, I'd take it a step further and ask "Can the Council be moved to Agriculture then?" It justifies the lack-of-maintenance, and normalizes it with the other two "key opening buildings": the shrine and the monument. In fact, I might see some build orders preferring a council to a monument in the capital, especially if pantheons support it. It devalues Wheel a little, but it also means that a hypothetical swordman-rusher would have access to the council at a normal timing (whenever they want to fit it around monument/shrine), and not after they reach Iron Working (Wheel isn't required for this rush).

For now I've pulled off Council from the list of buildings to which to add maintenance. I think I have some other thoughts for a proposal to move Council to Agriculture, and replace it's slot in Wheel with Herbalist or Jungle Chop, but I'll save that for a different post.

 

[Stalker0]

I do think structural consistency is the bedrock of balance.

In order for this to be true, you have to make every yield and every mechanic equivalent. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is a monumental task, and one that mod has not achieved, and likely will never achieve.

Forcing structural consistency simply limits the tools you have to achieve balance, and so with a weaker toolset, your balance will be weaker.

 

[ma_kuh]

If you'll indulge me, let me use a card game as a metaphor.

Suppose the rules say you may play a card each turn. The opportunity cost of any play is the same. I would argue it's easier to balance this game than one where you add arbitrary resource costs to card plays. You know how strong a single play should be, and you can measure its impact relative to any other card and know if it over- or underperforms. Civ 5 is definitely not this simple, even when scoped to a single tech band: you have "mega cards" which take multiple turns to play (Wonders), you have "mini cards" (units, tile improvements), and you can overlap multiple plays at the same time. But by fixing one aspect of the economy system, you make it easier to tune the specifics of any one play.

My point being, I don't think it's inherent to the toolset whether you can balance something or not. It's hard either way . Fixing certain aspects of the game (action economy, resources, costs) can be a perfectly valid way to achieve a balanced result; the same can be said for exceptions to a rule.

 

[pineappledan]

That's my perception of Council as well; they are basically the monument/shrine equivalent for science. I don't know if that's a strong reason to bring it forward to agriculture though. For one thing that would undermine its presence as a free building on stonehenge

 

[ma_kuh]

Do you get refunded the for a duplicate building or is that just for buildings? Either way, I'd just as soon remove it as a free building then. Whether it needs a compensatory change, I'd probably leave for another proposal.

I know it's very Civ 6, but it always struck me as odd that working towards a wonder with a free building didn't require that building in the first place. I sort of hate this idea that your construction teams are working really hard to make this fancy council (in this case), then some other civ comes along and says "We made Stonehenge, the greatest council!" and your teams are like "SCRAP IT ALL!" And you start your council over from scratch. Making the free building a pre-req, and reducing the cost accordingly, often feels like how I'd expect wonder building to behave. Maybe that's neither here nor there.

 

[Legen]

Do you get refunded the for a duplicate building

Yes.

 

[N.Core]

Herbalist (Longhouse does have maintenance)

Because this is a voted change, I removed the maintenance cost from Longhouse because it's an oversight (someone forgot to change it). Expect the change in the next version.
The value will return if this proposal passed.

I don't know about Ger, I thought it was part of Ger's perk to not have a maintenance cost.

 

[ma_kuh]

I've updated the OP with context on the Longhouse's maintenance cost being a bug. I've left Ger as adding maintenance, but still welcome the discussion of whether the Ancient era unique buildings for warmongers are exceptional and deserve to make it a little easier to field a standing army. Maybe I'll suggest it as a ratification option.

 

[pineappledan]

I can sponsor this

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by pineappledan.