3.6 AI-only Game Statistics

[N.Core]

SV is the only victory type without any interaction with other civs

I heavily disagree with this, especially since if you are leading tech-wise, the other civs get the bonuses through modifiers, and they can hurt you more by proposing the science boost (I forgot the name) on the WC.

If you're heavily into SV, you're essentially carrying the tech for the whole game.

My idea of solving this is to give tech progression from reward by doing something instead of tech boost, kinda like Eureka from Civ VI; so then you can research faster since you already get partial progression. But I dislike the micro part of Eureka which can be a daunting task to do. If you want to fix SV by keep adding something to bulbing or Science yield in general, you will just keep inflating the tech cost to counter-balance it, not an ideal way of balancing.

 

[axatin]

heavily disagree with this, especially since if you are leading tech-wise, the other civs get the bonuses through modifiers, and they can hurt you more by proposing the science boost (I forgot the name) on the WC.

If you're heavily into SV, you're essentially carrying the tech for the whole game.

These are all catch-up mechanics, they're active while the other civ is behind, once the civ has reached the level of the tech leader, they don't apply anymore. If you want to overtake another civ tech-wise, you need to have more science than them at some point.

But the point I wanted to make is the following: The amount of tourism you need to win a CV heavily depends on the other civilizations in the game. The same is true for the amount of investments you need to make to get a DiploV. In addition, the other civs have some levers to pull to slow down your progress towards those victory types. For SV, neither of these apply: There's a fixed amount of science you need to get to win the game (it's reduced if you're behind at some point in the game, but it's never increased). And there's no way for the other civs to stop you, except for conquering you (which is almost impossible if you're leading tech-wise), or, well, by winning the game before you. That's why SV needs to come later than the other victory types, otherwise it would be consistently too strong.

 

[N.Core]

These are all catch-up mechanics, they're active while the other civ is behind, once the civ has reached the level of the tech leader, they don't apply anymore. If you want to overtake another civ tech-wise, you need to have more science than them at some point.

Yes, this catch-up mechanic hurt SV because going after one means that you're enabling others to get their designated VC type quickly.
While I believe this mechanic should exist so it can help slow-tech players catch up, it doesn't hide the fact that you're aiming SV indirectly affects other civs to win quicker. There's also additional Science yield from Trade Routes, which also helps non-SV players.

In addition, the other civs have some levers to pull to slow down your progress towards those victory types. For SV, neither of these apply: There's a fixed amount of science you need to get to win the game (it's reduced if you're behind at some point in the game, but it's never increased). And there's no way for the other civs to stop you, except for conquering you (which is almost impossible if you're leading tech-wise), or, well, by winning the game before you.

What I want for SV is to make it require some effort in order to make other players can't catch up. In the VP Discord server, I already suggest adding some kind of projects akin to the Apollo Project, but for other eras. By investing in these projects, you get tech progression for some of the techs so you can research faster. By doing this, we can differentiate between DomV and SV, because both VCs are parallel since they require you to tech faster. While DomV requires you to spend Production for units, we can make SV requires you to spend Production for projects.

So, in order to slow SV players you have to keep bugging them so they can't spend their production on these projects and force it to spend it on something else.

 

[CppMaster]

In the VP Discord server, I already suggest adding some kind of projects akin to the Apollo Project, but for other eras. By investing in these projects, you get tech progression for some of the techs so you can research faster.

So basically a more efficient science process?

 

[N.Core]

So basically a more efficient science process?

Research process is directly converting Production into Science yield, which can cause the yield to snowball and be hard to balance. Also, AI can't benefit from it very well (use Research to prepare for bulbing.) Especially since processes are also bugged (I don't know if it's already fixed.)

Meanwhile, my solution is to make it convert indirectly. You can even still benefit from it while you use your Production for something else because you already get the tech progression.
Forcing SV players to spend their Production to convert it to Science directly is an uninteresting way to win.

 

[CppMaster]

Research process is directly converting Production into Science yield, which can cause the yield to snowball and be hard to balance. Also, AI can't benefit from it very well (use Research to prepare for bulbing.) Especially since processes are also bugged (I don't know if it's already fixed.)

Meanwhile, my solution is to make it convert indirectly. You can even still benefit from it while you use your Production for something else because you already get the tech progression.
Forcing SV players to spend their Production to convert it to Science directly is an uninteresting way to win.

What's the meaningful difference between direct and indirect conversion here? Both use production to get more science.

 

[N.Core]

What's the meaningful difference between direct and indirect conversion here? Both use production to get more science.

Science per Turn yield from Research process?
My indirect solution doesn't give you Science yield outright. Instead, it goes directly to tech progression.

Science yield is affecting many other stuff, so like I said above it has the potential to become a snowball mechanic.

 

[pineappledan]

From my current game as Japan. 1 turn since the WC was founded and it’s already over as a mechanic. Nothing to do but kill Austria.

How is this free WC votes ability fun for anyone?

 

[azum4roll]

How did she manage to get so much gold?

 

[Enginseer]

How did she manage to get so much gold?

Marriages aren't that expensive.
500 Base Gold Cost + 100 Gold Cost after each Marriage... does scale on game speed but still.

 

[pineappledan]

8 marriages is quite doable. 6800 over 4 eras
She's done well on conventional vote methods as well. Her UA is Merely doubling her ridiculous vote count.

Of course, it can only go up from here; there are another 8 WC votes for her to get.

 

[Hinin]

View attachment 665572
8 marriages is quite doable. 6800 over 4 eras
She's done well on conventional vote methods as well. Her UA is Merely doubling her ridiculous vote count.

Of course, it can only go up from here; there are another 8 WC votes for her to get.

Start of idea : make CS alliances with Austria gradually increase resting influence (1 per turn ?) with the allied CState for the rest of the game. It makes her power rise gradual, limited (a few hundred influence per CS at a maximum), less hard on her economy, but powerful nonetheless.

 

[andersw]

View attachment 665572
8 marriages is quite doable. 6800 over 4 eras
She's done well on conventional vote methods as well. Her UA is Merely doubling her ridiculous vote count.

Of course, it can only go up from here; there are another 8 WC votes for her to get.

Yes another civ I've disabled, the game turns into, erase austria or erase all CS.

 

[pineappledan]

Start of idea : make CS alliances with Austria gradually increase resting influence (1 per turn ?) with the allied CState for the rest of the game. It makes her power rise gradual, limited (a few hundred influence per CS at a maximum), less hard on her economy, but powerful nonetheless.

Her current ability of increasing resting influence effectively does this, but stronger.

If you marry them when below the resting point, their influence climbs up, which is effectively +2.5 per turn when below 100 and +3.5 per turn between 101 and 200. Then above that point, the decay reductionover the 0 resting baseline is equivalent to 2^1.5, or +2.83 per turn, and gets stronger for every 100 CS you have over 300

 

[Anarcomu]

Her current ability of increasing resting influence effectively does this, but stronger

I think Hinin meant that marriage comes with no resting points at start, then get increasing resting points with passing time, not passive influence.

 

[amateurgamer88]

For Austria, maybe decouple the UA and adjust the cost? If marriage is actually expensive, then Austria will take longer to get off the ground.

 

[pineappledan]

Ah you’re right. I misread.

Here is what I was thinking for the Marriages: make them initially cheaper and easier to do, but no WC vote. That will make them come into play sooner, and they won’t have an ability locked behind renaissance era.

Requirements:

• Costs 250 , scaling by +250 for every marriage already made
  • first 2 are cheaper but it scales more.
  • Usable earlier, but later marriages get very expensive. 16 CS on standard means last one is 4000 )
• Requires being allied to the city-state
  • (currently must be allied for 5 turns. Easier and faster, again.
  • No longer requires checking and counting turn times, which was bothersome

Bonuses:

• - Increases resting influence to your current influence with target CS.
  • Eg if you have 75 with a CS and marry them, your resting point is increased by +75.
  • Stacks additively with other resting point increasing abilities. For instance, if you married a CS that you had expended a GDiplomat on (increases resting influence by 35), and a current influence of 200, your new resting influence would be equal to 35+200
• - +15%GP rate in the capital per marriage (same as now)

Drop the WC vote, and remove the static +200. This means that marriage resting influence bonus is dynamic and controllable by the player. They could use it sooner and Al faster, or wait for higher influence levels with CS and peg their resting influence higher. So there is a tradeoff.

 

[Solic]

I like the WC vote on marriage. They should be a big force in the WC, because they are one of the pure diplo civs. Ultimately, it just means you can usually pass one thing you want and thwart others early, whereas later in the game you can just prevent getting hurt by other resolutions.

As a human player, it's not easy to balance building up marriages and maintaining enough of an army to not get attacked early on, since they are much more of a late bloom civ, which is part of their appeal to me.

If it's getting nerfed, it'd seem simpler to just reduce their WC vote gain to 1 per 2 marriages instead of 1 for every marriage.

 

[pineappledan]

I just don't think extra WC votes should exist as a UA bonus at all. As a policy bonus, fine, but policy choices are an investment and are a decision that is made when you're already well into the game. They are also delayed off the game start.
UAs are unlocked on turn 0, so having a bonus that doesn't do anything until turn 200 is lame. But when it does come online it's absurdly powerful in order to compensate for that.
That bonus puts a target on Austria's back that is just too unfun to either play against or to play as. It's not great being forced this strongly to HAVE to kill another player outright in order to be able to participate in a mechanic that they monopolize just by existing.

In my current game with Japan I dominated my continent and picked Statecraft 70 turns before I met anyone else in the game. When it was revealed that Austria was in the game, I felt cheated, like I invested thousands of culture into a policy tree that I effectively can't use until this 1 other player is dead. If Austria had started on my continent I either would have killed her 100 turns ago or I would never have picked Statecraft.

The only exception I could see is if using a civ's WC vote bonus came with a tradeoff. See my Canada civ for an example of that.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the WC vote on marriage. They should be a big force in the WC, because they are one of the pure diplo civs. Ultimately, it just means you can usually pass one thing you want and thwart others early, whereas later in the game you can just prevent getting hurt by other resolutions.

The biggest question mark to me is whether continuing to increase the min influence of Austria is basically just copying Greece's influence reduction.

I do think the votes have to be reigned in; I don't know if they need to be removed entirely. Maybe 1 votes per 3 marriages or something. But the 1 vote per marriage is just too crazy, I agree that Austria is often the civ in the game that you HAVE to destroy in order to win, their power is just too all encompassing