VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 40
Problem/Rationale of this Proposal:
The scaling of unit maintenance costs over time is currently determined by the percentage of elapsed game turns. This isn't a good measure because the number of turns to win a game depends strongly on the difficulty level. I propose to change the scaling so that it's based on the percentage of researched technologies instead. The scaling of unit costs will then be more similar across difficulty levels. In addition, the unit costs will then be lower for players that are behind (and usually have weaker units).
As a game is usually won before the end turn, this would require reducing the scaling factor a bit, otherwise unit costs would become too high in the late game. I calculated it through using a set of save games. With the change I propose, unit costs would still be slightly higher in the late game than they are now. As there's also an increasing discrepancy between unit costs and building costs in the late game, I suggest to reduce late game building maintenance costs slightly.
Proposal:
Unit maintenance cost scaling:
The current formula is (Number of Units with Maintenance)*(1 + 8*(Number of Elapsed Turns)/(End Turn Number)). To this value, an exponential increase is applied that causes in particular large armies to be more expensive.
With the proposed change, the formula is replaced by (Number of Units with Maintenance)*(1 + 7*(Number of Researched Techs)/(Total Number of Techs)).
Playing on Immortal difficulty, Standard speed, approx. 15 cities, Progress (no Authority unit cost reduction):
* In my game, all unit costs were increased by 25% because of a WC proposal. The values shown are the ones before the 25% increase.
Problem/Rationale of this Proposal:
The scaling of unit maintenance costs over time is currently determined by the percentage of elapsed game turns. This isn't a good measure because the number of turns to win a game depends strongly on the difficulty level. I propose to change the scaling so that it's based on the percentage of researched technologies instead. The scaling of unit costs will then be more similar across difficulty levels. In addition, the unit costs will then be lower for players that are behind (and usually have weaker units).
As a game is usually won before the end turn, this would require reducing the scaling factor a bit, otherwise unit costs would become too high in the late game. I calculated it through using a set of save games. With the change I propose, unit costs would still be slightly higher in the late game than they are now. As there's also an increasing discrepancy between unit costs and building costs in the late game, I suggest to reduce late game building maintenance costs slightly.
Proposal:
Unit maintenance cost scaling:
- Unit cost scaling is determined by the percentage of researched technologies instead of the percentage of elapsed game turns
- The scaling factor is decreased from 8 to 7 (see explanation below)
- The costs of Industrial Era Buildings (currently 6 or 7 gold) are reduced by 1
- The costs of Modern Era Buildings (currently 8 gold) are reduced by 1
- The costs of Atomic Era Buildings (currently 10 gold) are reduced by 2
- The costs of Information Era Buildings stay at 10 gold
Spoiler Explanation of unit scaling: :
The current formula is (Number of Units with Maintenance)*(1 + 8*(Number of Elapsed Turns)/(End Turn Number)). To this value, an exponential increase is applied that causes in particular large armies to be more expensive.
With the proposed change, the formula is replaced by (Number of Units with Maintenance)*(1 + 7*(Number of Researched Techs)/(Total Number of Techs)).
Spoiler Example :
Playing on Immortal difficulty, Standard speed, approx. 15 cities, Progress (no Authority unit cost reduction):
Turn Number | Researching Tech (%Techs Researched) | Number of Units with Maintenance | Current Unit Costs* | Current Building Costs | Change Unit Costs* | Change Building Costs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
220 | Economics (49%) | 45 | 143 | 280 | +2 | 0 |
257 | Fertilizer (61%) | 66 | 259 | 511 | +34 | -3 |
286 | Rocketry (68%) | 92 | 433 | 985 | +65 | -44 |
324 | Advanced Ballistics (78%) | 90 | 501 | 1570 | +106 | -108 |
356 | Robotics (89%) | 98 | 649 | 2121 | +197 | -188 |
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