[Vote] (5-32) Golden Age Removal Series: Remove GAP From Mastery Belief

[pineappledan]

VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 32

Current Situation:
Mastery Belief gives +1 of each respective specialist's main yield type and +1 GAP

Proposal:
Remove the +1GAP to specialists
Replace with +3 Gold if the City has at least1 Specialist.

Rationale:
Mastery used to give +2 of the respective specialist's main yield, but that was too strong. It was lowered to +1 yield, but that was too weak, so +1GAP was added to all specialists as a sort of filler. Stronger than 1 yield by itself, but weaker than 2. This is contributing to the inflation of GAPs as a yield source, which should not be distributed willy-nilly like this.
There are too many sources of GAP in the game, which is contributing to a problem of perpetual GAs in the late game. They make the GA system boring and uninteractive
GAPs should not be considered yields. They have no real world analogue like "Food". They are being distributed in the game carelessly as a filler yield. Happiness should be re-centered as the main source of Golden Ages.

 

[Anarcomu]

Maybe replace GAP with +20-25% ?

 

[ma_kuh]

Seems like one step too far in nerfing GAs at this juncture, in my opinion. Basically a shot in the dark at how far to push the removal of GAPs. I would like to see this paired with possible additional changes to beliefs (especially Stupa), decided at the same time (next congress), and with a little bit of insight into the weight of the other changes.

 

[pineappledan]

There’s still a month of deliberation. Stupa is also in my crosshairs. I thought I would start with a few tester proposals, but I can roll out more of them

Between mastery and stupas, Mastery is the worse offender between the two though. At least for stupa the intent was to always have it give GAP. Mastery uses GAP as filler. Packing material to fill it out a bit. GAPs aren’t a proper yield like food; it has no real world equivalent. It’s a made up game point that signifies nothing. It should not be distributed Willy nilly like this.

 

[ma_kuh]

What's the relative power of GAP compared to Happiness?

I feel like replacing the +1 with -1 from Urbanization would be really clean, and makes it more comparable to the faith buildings. No up-front cost, but you need to be working specialists which come with other trade-offs. Maybe if this made it onto a new building that replaced the Stupa you could handle both problems at once?

But at least the initial math is comparing: +1/specialist to ... +1 from happiness (modified by Artistry)
Which seems like a significant nerf.

 

[azum4roll]

What's the relative power of GAP compared to Happiness?

I feel like replacing the +1 with -1 from Urbanization would be really clean, and makes it more comparable to the faith buildings. No up-front cost, but you need to be working specialists which come with other trade-offs. Maybe if this made it onto a new building that replaced the Stupa you could handle both problems at once?

But at least the initial math is comparing: +1/specialist to ... +1 from happiness (modified by Artistry)
Which seems like a significant nerf.

Happiness is generally a superior GAP, but it isn't counted in Great Artist bulb.

 

[pineappledan]

Maybe replace GAP with +20-25% ?

That would be much stronger. Comparable to increasing the yields back up to +2 per specialist.

What's the relative power of GAP compared to Happiness?

I feel like replacing the +1 with -1 from Urbanization would be really clean, and makes it more comparable to the faith buildings. No up-front cost, but you need to be working specialists which come with other trade-offs. Maybe if this made it onto a new building that replaced the Stupa you could handle both problems at once?

But at least the initial math is comparing: +1/specialist to ... +1 from happiness (modified by Artistry)
Which seems like a significant nerf.

Mastery could give 1 specialist generates no unhappiness in this city (ie. -1 urbanization), but that is new code, and thus I would need a DLL sponsor for that. The proposal as written is simple database changes.

It's a good idea, but I would need a sponsor to come forward for that before I amend.

re: the stupa, I was contemplating replacing it with the Daoguan from my More Beliefs mod. I think it's just a better idea for a faith building, and less repetitive.
We have a reformation belief that gives per turn to faith buildings: Holy Sites. Stupas are redundant with that reformation belief
Stupas and Pagodas are basically the same thing. A pagoda is multiple stupas stacked on top of each other.
GAPs are not a good yield to be giving on a per-turn basis in any form.

 

[azum4roll]

GAPs are not a good yield to be giving on a per-turn basis in any form.

I should note that this is entirely subjective. Also, there are plenty more sources of per turn GAP anyway.

 

[pineappledan]

In a game that professes to have a world history flavor, having yield types that are made up points with no real world analogues might be seen as bad. This wasn’t a problem base civ5 had, it is VP that has blown GAPs up into a full economy, put them into several beliefs and built an entire policy tree around them.

I guess it’s my subjective opinion that having game elements that mean nothing and signify nothing shouldn’t just be… all over the place. But they are also having a negative impact on gameplay, in addition to the damage GAPs are doing to the game’s theme. 2 birds with 1 stone.

 

[ma_kuh]

I think in fairness, the real-world equivalent of Golden Age "points" would be the unquantifiable "greatness" that you think of or remember an empire to have/have achieved. Like how Culture isn't really a "thing", it's an essence.

This leads me to feel like GAPs should primarily be earned from great achievements: building a wonder, birthing a great person, winning wars, advancing eras. Happiness is reflective of a well-managed, well-cared for empire, and it's role in producing Golden Ages makes sense.

So I'm on board with the per-turn GAPs being better-described by Happiness over/under, and cleaning up trickle GAPs just for clarity's sake, but I'm not 100% sold that Happiness should be positioned as the main driver for GAs -- maybe a 50/50 spread, in my view, balanced against instant yields from the above mentioned events. I'm heavily in favor for this session of congress to address the baseline Golden Age issues -- "all yields", GA costs, that sort of thing-- but I think we should keep the fat-trimming light on this go-around.

 

[pineappledan]

This leads me to feel like GAPs should primarily be earned from great achievements: building a wonder, birthing a great person, winning wars, advancing eras. Happiness is reflective of a well-managed, well-cared for empire, and it's role in producing Golden Ages makes sense

Sort of like international “Prestige”. This is sort of how it works in civ 6, where they are called “era points”. This theme is captured by tourism as an instant yield from historic events in VP right now. At this time, starting a new Golden Age even starts one of those HEs, so there is a lot of disentangling and reversing the flow of these things if GAPs were to swap into the space that tourism currently occupies.

Golden age points could be swapped as the reward in that HE system, but that engenders an even more radical mechanic shift than anything I have set out.

So I'm on board with the per-turn GAPs being better-described by Happiness over/under, and cleaning up trickle GAPs just for clarity's sake, but I'm not 100% sold that Happiness should be positioned as the main driver for GAs -- maybe a 50/50 spread, in my view, balanced against instant yields from the above mentioned events. I'm heavily in favor for this session of congress to address the baseline Golden Age issues -- "all yields", GA costs, that sort of thing-- but I think we should keep the fat-trimming light on this go-around.

The reason mastery sticks out as the one proposal I submitted this round is because of mod history reasons.

As I laid out in the OP, mastery was never supposed to be a GAP belief in the first place. The only reason mastery is a GAP source is purely because GAPs were treated as filler between +1 yield and +2 yield. They exist on this belief purely because of a failure of imagination, and a lack of concern about what adding more GAP sources into the game would do to the game overall.

TL;DR GAPs exist on mastery in the first place because of openly acknowledged laziness and myopia. Not because anyone thought GAPs ought to be here in particular.

 

[azum4roll]

But they are also having a negative impact on gameplay

Which brings us into the second point: you want Golden Ages to be very rare, but many components are balanced around Golden Ages being as common as they currently are, at least for the early and mid game. Yet there are no proposals rebalancing them.

 

[ma_kuh]

Sort of like international “Prestige”. This is sort of how it works in civ 6, where they are called “era points”. This theme is captured by tourism as an instant yield from historic events in VP right now. At this time, starting a new Golden Age even starts one of those HEs, so there is a lot of disentangling and reversing the flow of these things if GAPs were to swap into the space that tourism currently occupies.

Golden age points could be swapped as the reward in that HE system, but that engenders an even more radical mechanic shift than anything I have set out.

This is basically where I'm at, yeah. I didn't mention Historic Events specifically because trade routes counting as them breaks the 1:1 comparison, but to me it's just another sign that the system is a bit overloaded thematically. And tourism being the stand-in for renown is a little odd, especially because it has this weird dynamic where it improves others' disposition of you while simultaneously being the way those victims are losing the game.

 

[pineappledan]

@azum4roll , just “more rare than they are now. Rare enough that permanent golden age is harder to do, and requires much more investment than it does now.

Hard to have that conversation here. Taking stock of everything you and I have proposed so far the largest impact on how many GAs will happen is from the proposed increase to the city scaler and reducing the GArtist bulb. Both of which are not only things that you proposed in the first place, but that you insisted on larger changes to than what I had initially planned on.

I was at first going to suggest only increasing the City scaler to 3%, but you insisted it should be 5%. I just want to reduce the theming bonus scaler from 20% to 10%, but you also want to remove tourism as a source for the base value, and reduce the number of turns counted from 10 to 3

So you seem to be simultaneously pushing for fewer GAs harder than I am while also criticizing me for going too far.

Edit: also I’m not opposed to making GAs stronger, if people think that would be more fun, or is necessary as a counterbalance to them being rarer. Seems premature to propose that right away.

 

[azum4roll]

and reduce the number of turns counted from 10 to 3

Read again carefully. I suggested counting 3x the amount of GAP accumulated over the last 10 turns, instead of counting tourism.

I'm perfectly fine with current early and mid-game GA frequencies, outside of the first one's timing. It only goes out of hand when you start bulbing Great Artists.

 

[pineappledan]

I can sponsor

 

[hokath]

I quite like Golden Age Points coming from Religious Beliefs. So although I am in favour of most GA nerfs, I'm against this one.