(5-25) Austria UA Change

[Stalker0]

Current Austria UA

+50% bonus from CS quests. May arrange marriages with allied CS using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 500 gold, +100 per previous marriage). While at peace with CS, marriages increasing resting CS influence by 200, grant 1 vote, and boost GP generation in the capital by 15%.


Proposal

+100% rewards from City-State quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 200 gold, +200 per previous marriage), which increases Resting Influence equal to your current influence (max 500). Gain +10% to Great People generation in the Capital for each Marriage with a peaceful City-State.

Rationale
Austria is commonly cited as one of the most "oppresive" Civs, as her vote bonus from marriages can give her such an overwhelming WC advantage that the only way to stop her is extermination. This is further backed up by the AI results data, which shows Austria routinely in the top 3 civs version after version. Austria's need for a nerf is clear.

This proposal removes her vote bonus, the source of her oppression. Her quest bonus has been increased to make this the focus of her diplomatic playstyle. The bonus has now gone from a nice bonus to something that will help shape her play and so keeping the CS "happy" by completing quests will now be a core part of Austria's strength....rather than a sideshow. Her general GP bonus has been further weakened, to make her quest bonus more of the focus.

The change to her resting influence is meant to provide a strategic tradeoff between how fast she chooses to marry a civ. She can marry early at a lower influence rate, or push influence higher to get a really strong resting influence rate with the civ.
irst.

 

[pineappledan]

need to replace the discord icons with CFC icons.
The proposal is not readable

 

[Anarcomu]

The only thing I don't like about it is the set resting influence at time of marriage ; the rest looks very promising. Maybe have a resting influence that scale with era ?

 

[axatin]

Resting influence set to the Influence at the time of marriage is too strong, it's effectively a sphere of influence. If Austria does that while having 1000 influence, she could keep that level while the influence of all other civs near that level would decrease rapidly. After a decol, Austria's influence would just quickly jump back to that level, so decols would actually help Austria a lot.

A resting influence of 50, scaling with era, would be fine. Austria would still have a significant advantage over the other civs. The other parts of the proposal are good.

 

[pineappledan]

We had also discussed rescaling the gold cost on marriages.

The current scaling is 500 + 100 for each previous marriage
Propose that the scaling be changed to 200 + 200 for each previous marriage

Get the marriages started sooner, make the later ones more costly

 

[Stalker0]

Resting influence set to the Influence at the time of marriage is too strong, it's effectively a sphere of influence. If Austria does that while having 1000 influence, she could keep that level while the influence of all other civs near that level would decrease rapidly. After a decol, Austria's influence would just quickly jump back to that level, so decols would actually help Austria a lot.

A resting influence of 50, scaling with era, would be fine. Austria would still have a significant advantage over the other civs. The other parts of the proposal are good.

This is a pretty good point, and honestly I consider resting influence change a small part of the package (not to mention the coding changes).

I think I will just change that back to 200 influence straight up. If someone feels strongly to use an alternate mechanic we can always counterpropose.

 

[Stalker0]

We had also discussed rescaling the gold cost on marriages.

The current scaling is 500 + 100 for each previous marriage
Propose that the scaling be changed to 200 + 200 for each previous marriage

Get the marriages started sooner, make the later ones more costly

will do

 

[pineappledan]

I really hate how the current system allows you to marry at 60 , and let your influence “recover” up to 200, allowing you to get >100 free influence as it slowly climbs.

Could add a max. Sets influence to your current influence, up to 500 or something.

 

[Stalker0]

I really hate how the current system allows you to marry at 60 , and let your influence “recover” up to 200, allowing you to get >100 free influence as it slowly climbs.

Could add a max. Sets influence to your current influence, up to 500 or something.

Ok that's a solid idea, but why boost it to 500, instead of the current 200? 200 is still a solid resting spot, and this is meant to be a nerf overall.

 

[pineappledan]

With the WC vote removed you could set the resting influence to anything and it would still be a nerf.
If the influence is to be dynamically set, 500 seems like a high, but beatable threshold, while 200 seems too low for a ceiling

Also, if gold costs are rescaled, it becomes easier to set higher influence on later marriages, but they also become more expensive. If you cap at only 200 the marriages value will plateau in maybe medieval.

 

[Stalker0]

Proposal Updated: 7/5/2023 11:00 EST

• Updated gold cost for marriages
• Adjusted resting influence to now have a cap of 500.

 

[azum4roll]

What about the 10 turns ally requirement? it's not mentioned anywhere.

Unless you can properly teach the AI about the tradeoff (which requires future prediction - what if we won't be allied to this CS anymore when we finally reach the target optimal influence?), I suggest dropping the variable resting point.

 

[Stalker0]

Proposal UPDATE: 7/6/2023 19:00 EST

• Removed +1 point GD point per marriage.

This would be new code and after discussion we think we can just remove the bonus, as Austria's strong position warranted a bit more nerfing.

 

[pineappledan]

for reference, here is the old UA in the civ select screen:

And here is the new one:

A little shorter, but not a ton.

re: the dynamic setting resting influence to current influence, the comparison shouldn't be to the previous 200 resting influence. That was just an arbitrary amount decided on to test it out and get rid of the older version, which froze all decay.

What pegging resting influence to current influence does is more closely match to the old decay freeze, but what it does is set the decay freeze to a single point. In comparison, the old decay freezing was the equivalent of having your resting influence always climb to whatever your current influence is, and constantly grow throughout the game. At least setting the influence point once allows for some decay.

This proposal is proposing to remove the WC vote and weaken the stacking GPrate bonus in exchange for partially restoring the old decay freeze.

 

[azum4roll]

Either way, it's a one-time button that gives generally better returns the later you press it, except you don't know whether you can press it next turn. AI will struggle at it.

This kind of mechanic needs to be either always available (once it unlocks), always better earlier (fixed influence), or can be redone any time for free (freeze decay).

 

[axatin]

how about a fixed (or era-scaling) resting point increase and the additional requirement that in order to do the marriage, the current influence must be higher than the new resting influence after the marriage?

 

[pineappledan]

Either way, it's a one-time button that gives generally better returns the later you press it, except you don't know whether you can press it next turn. AI will struggle at it.

It does get more expensive the later you press it as well.

This kind of mechanic needs to be either always available (once it unlocks), always better earlier (fixed influence), or can be redone any time for free (freeze decay).

This is why I also recommended reducing the turn timer from 5 to 1, or to eliminate it completely. It would be easier to handle and remember for both human and AI

 

[azum4roll]

It does get more expensive the later you press it as well.

How? The cost stays the same.

This is why I also recommended reducing the turn timer from 5 to 1, or to eliminate it completely. It would be easier to handle and remember for both human and AI

You can still lose the ability to marry on the next turn. The AI cannot predict that, and you can only code it so they always marry ASAP.

 

[pineappledan]

How? The cost stays the same.

The costs scale with the number of marriages you have already. Later ones are more expensive.

You can still lose the ability to marry on the next turn. The AI cannot predict that, and you can only code it so they always marry ASAP.

You could make the AI only marry if it meets the following criteria:
It can marry (ie. it's possible)
current influence is at least (Min[ 400, 100 * {1+GetCurrentEra()}]

 

[Recursive]

You could make the AI only marry if it meets the following criteria:
It can marry (ie. it's possible)
current influence is at least (Min[ 400, 100 * {1+GetCurrentEra()}]

I can code that.

@Stalker0 I would mention the "turns required to be allied" mechanic as background info, since it's come up as a point for discussion several times.