Legen
Emperor
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2015
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Counterproposal to (5-24) Japan Nerf by pineappledan.
Proposal
Rationale
These changes aim to replace a component that has issues with AI difficulty scaling, and reinforce the UA's GG/GA birth aspect instead. It also tries to address an issue with the Defense/Military building mechanic, which departs from its original intention.
The core issue of the "yields on leveling" mechanic is its volatile performance with the AI handicaps. This mechanic has a history of easily getting out of hand in high AI difficulties from back then, when Gazebo experimented placing it in the UA; there were reports of Deity AI Japan about 10 techs ahead when everyone else was at Classical. This mechanic scales exponentially with unit level by design, and the AI handicaps has two parameters, AIFreeXP and AIFreeXPPercent, that can push this mechanic to extremes. I suspect this mechanic is affecting AI Japan's winrate at high difficulties again by the results of the 3.6 AI Emperor/Warlord tests, in which AI Japan ranks 3rd place in Emperor and 36th in Warlord.
Notably, Japan's wins at Emperor has a significant portion of scientific victories, despite Japan's kit being mainly tailored abound cultural/domination victories instead, and AI Oda having an overall low scientific flavor (conqueror personality, the lowest science/spaceship flavor of the four types, and no personalized adjustment towards either). With the only extra science yields in Japan's kit being in the Dojo, and the leveling mechanic having a prior case of getting out of control to extreme results, there's reason to believe the same happened in those tests. Meanwhile, these yields do not perform to such degree in human hands. It is generally treated as a fun extra that quickly falls off. Human players don't generally aim for a scientific victory with this mechanic in mind, as its values are not currently tuned to carry a victory type.
So, there's a strong mismatch between how this mechanic has to be balanced between human and AI, as well as between low and high AI difficulties. This makes it a problematic mechanic on this civ's design, as what would be balanced on one end is likely to be too powerful or underwhelming on the other. Until the AI combat handicaps are reworked, it is probably healthier to refrain using leveling as part of Japan's design and focus on their other core mechanic, a.k.a. the GG/GA birth rewards.
The "yields on Defense/Military buildings" has a different issue. Originally, it was intended to cover Japan's early game, as much of Japan's kit was being moved to Medieval (the reason why the Dojo has so many effects stacked on it) and AI Japan was struggling to keep a decent pace with other civs in the first two eras. As implemented, though, this mechanic extends its usefulness to much later eras. There's also complaint about it not being particularly fun or interesting, as it just reuses a very common effect in policies and wonders with no particular link to the UA's theme. It is also tied to costly Ancient buildings; players would sometimes report struggles to find a decent build order for Japan due to the unusually high maintenance costs and unorthodox tech priority that comes from prioritizing both Barracks and Walls.
The tweaked UA aims to cover for the yields from those two mechanics, tying those to the Great General and Admiral birth instead, and reinforcing this core mechanic for Japan. Moreover, the addition of yields on GG/GA birth opens the possibility of using the UA as an early game boost through a free Great General; here, the proposed UA gives one at Iron Working, a tech that used to grant one though the Heroic Epic (instead of a Great Writer) in earlier versions of VP. This should cover the original intention behind the "yields on defense/military buildings", and expands Japan's early game with Tradition (who can take advantage of the early 50% GWAM progress and normally struggles with setting defense/military buildings) and Progress (who benefits greatly from early science), giving some extra variability over the straightforward Authority start.
The free Great General and the yields on GG/GA birth should also be insensitive to AI difficulty, neither being particularly affected by the AI parameters and only giving one extra injection of handicap yields (gold and GAP) early on. Overall, the tweaked UA should place a much closer balance parity between human and AI performance for Japan than what we currently have with the "yields on leveling" mechanic, and hopefully address the complaints regarding the yields on defense/military buildings.
Amendment: The Seii Taishogun promotion part is replaced by a free Great General at Iron Working. Rationale adjusted accordingly.
Spoiler Dojo stats (changes from the base Armory underlined) :
Cost: 300
Science: +5 (from 2 )
Culture: +3 (from 0 )
Maintenance: -2
Experience: +25 xp (from +20 xp)
Doesn't require a Barracks in order to be built.
Supply: 2 (from 1)
All Melee, Mounted Melee, Naval Melee, Gunpowder and Armor Units trained in this City receive the Eight Virtues of Bushido Promotion.
When Units are promoted, gain Culture and Science based on their current Level.
-1 unhappiness from Distress.
Science: +5 (from 2 )
Culture: +3 (from 0 )
Maintenance: -2
Experience: +25 xp (from +20 xp)
Doesn't require a Barracks in order to be built.
Supply: 2 (from 1)
All Melee, Mounted Melee, Naval Melee, Gunpowder and Armor Units trained in this City receive the Eight Virtues of Bushido Promotion.
When Units are promoted, gain Culture and Science based on their current Level.
-1 unhappiness from Distress.
Spoiler Formula for Dojo's "yields on leveling" mechanic :
Current formula: max{1, 4 * (NewLevel - 2)^2}
Examples:
Upon reaching level 2: 1
Upon reaching level 3: 4
Upon reaching level 4: 16
Upon reaching level 5: 36
Upon reaching level 6: 64
Upon reaching level 7: 100
Upon reaching level 8: 144
Examples:
Upon reaching level 2: 1
Upon reaching level 3: 4
Upon reaching level 4: 16
Upon reaching level 5: 36
Upon reaching level 6: 64
Upon reaching level 7: 100
Upon reaching level 8: 144
Spoiler Japan's current UA (Shogunate) :
UA: Shogunate
+1 Culture and Faith from Defense and Military Training Buildings. When a Great Admiral or Great General is born, gain 50% progress toward a Great Artist, Writer, and Musician in your Capital.
+1 Culture and Faith from Defense and Military Training Buildings. When a Great Admiral or Great General is born, gain 50% progress toward a Great Artist, Writer, and Musician in your Capital.
Spoiler AI difficulty handicaps :
From Recursive's 1-05 proposal, relevant lines in bold:
Difficulty Setting | What does it do? | Settler | Chieftain | Warlord | Prince | King | Emperor | Immortal | Deity |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIStartingDefenseUnits | Extra Warriors (or era equivalent unit) at game start | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
StartingMinorDefenseUnits | Extra Warriors (or era equivalent unit) at game start for City-States | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
AIWorkRateModifier | Workers complete improvements x% faster | +0% | +0% | +0% | +25% | +35% | +50% | +60% | +70% |
AIUnhappinessPercent | % modifier to Unhappiness from Needs | +10% | +5% | -0% | -0% | -0% | -0% | -0% | -0% |
AIUnitCostPercent | Discount on unit maintenance | 100% | 100% | 100% | 90% | 85% | 80% | 75% | 70% |
AIBuildingCostPercent | Discount on building maintenance | 100% | 100% | 100% | 90% | 85% | 80% | 75% | 70% |
AIUnitUpgradePercent | Discount on unit upgrade cost | 100% | 100% | 100% | 90% | 80% | 70% | 60% | 50% |
AITrainPercent | Modifier to combat unit production cost | 110% | 105% | 100% | 90% | 85% | 80% | 75% | 70% |
AIConstructPercent | Modifier to building production cost | 110% | 105% | 100% | 90% | 85% | 80% | 75% | 70% |
AIPerEraModifier | Additional reduction to building and combat unit production costs (multiplicative) for each game era that passes | -0% | -0% | -0% | -4% | -6% | -8% | -9% | -10% |
AICivilianPercent (new) | Modifier to production cost for non-combat units | 110% | 105% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
AICreatePercent AIWorldCreatePercent AIWorldConstructPercent | Modifiers to production cost for Projects, World Wonders and World Congress Projects | 110% | 105% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
AIFreeXP | Free XP given to units (except starting pathfinder), scaling with game speed | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
AIFreeXPPercent | % increase to XP gain from combat | +0% | +0% | +0% | +20% | +40% | +60% | +80% | +100% |
VisionBonus | Extra sight for AI units (except scouting and trade units) in # of tiles | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
AIResistanceCap (new) | Maximum anti-warmonger fervor AGAINST the AI | 64% | 48% | 32% | 40% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% |
AIBarbarianBonus | AI Bonus VS Barbarians | 0% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 25% | 25% | 30% | 30% |
DifficultyBonusBase | See AI Periodic Yield Bonuses, below | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 14 |
DifficultyBonusA | See below | 0 | 0 | 0 | 320 | 335 | 350 | 360 | 375 |
DifficultyBonusB | See below | 0 | 0 | 0 | 190 | 210 | 230 | 240 | 260 |
DifficultyBonusC | See below | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 123 | 145 | 160 | 180 |
Proposal
- Remove the Dojo's "yields on leveling" mechanic.
- Remove the yields on Defense and Military Training buildings from Japan's UA.
- Japan's UA gain the following effects:
- Great General and Admiral birth also grant 250 Culture and Science, scaling with Era.
- Free Great General at Iron Working.
Spoiler How the tweaked UA would look like :
UA: Shogunate
When a Great General or Great Admiral is born, gain 250 Culture and Science, scaling with Era, and 50% Great Writer/Artist/Musician progress in the Capital. Free Great General at Iron Working.
When a Great General or Great Admiral is born, gain 250 Culture and Science, scaling with Era, and 50% Great Writer/Artist/Musician progress in the Capital. Free Great General at Iron Working.
Rationale
These changes aim to replace a component that has issues with AI difficulty scaling, and reinforce the UA's GG/GA birth aspect instead. It also tries to address an issue with the Defense/Military building mechanic, which departs from its original intention.
The core issue of the "yields on leveling" mechanic is its volatile performance with the AI handicaps. This mechanic has a history of easily getting out of hand in high AI difficulties from back then, when Gazebo experimented placing it in the UA; there were reports of Deity AI Japan about 10 techs ahead when everyone else was at Classical. This mechanic scales exponentially with unit level by design, and the AI handicaps has two parameters, AIFreeXP and AIFreeXPPercent, that can push this mechanic to extremes. I suspect this mechanic is affecting AI Japan's winrate at high difficulties again by the results of the 3.6 AI Emperor/Warlord tests, in which AI Japan ranks 3rd place in Emperor and 36th in Warlord.
Notably, Japan's wins at Emperor has a significant portion of scientific victories, despite Japan's kit being mainly tailored abound cultural/domination victories instead, and AI Oda having an overall low scientific flavor (conqueror personality, the lowest science/spaceship flavor of the four types, and no personalized adjustment towards either). With the only extra science yields in Japan's kit being in the Dojo, and the leveling mechanic having a prior case of getting out of control to extreme results, there's reason to believe the same happened in those tests. Meanwhile, these yields do not perform to such degree in human hands. It is generally treated as a fun extra that quickly falls off. Human players don't generally aim for a scientific victory with this mechanic in mind, as its values are not currently tuned to carry a victory type.
So, there's a strong mismatch between how this mechanic has to be balanced between human and AI, as well as between low and high AI difficulties. This makes it a problematic mechanic on this civ's design, as what would be balanced on one end is likely to be too powerful or underwhelming on the other. Until the AI combat handicaps are reworked, it is probably healthier to refrain using leveling as part of Japan's design and focus on their other core mechanic, a.k.a. the GG/GA birth rewards.
The "yields on Defense/Military buildings" has a different issue. Originally, it was intended to cover Japan's early game, as much of Japan's kit was being moved to Medieval (the reason why the Dojo has so many effects stacked on it) and AI Japan was struggling to keep a decent pace with other civs in the first two eras. As implemented, though, this mechanic extends its usefulness to much later eras. There's also complaint about it not being particularly fun or interesting, as it just reuses a very common effect in policies and wonders with no particular link to the UA's theme. It is also tied to costly Ancient buildings; players would sometimes report struggles to find a decent build order for Japan due to the unusually high maintenance costs and unorthodox tech priority that comes from prioritizing both Barracks and Walls.
The tweaked UA aims to cover for the yields from those two mechanics, tying those to the Great General and Admiral birth instead, and reinforcing this core mechanic for Japan. Moreover, the addition of yields on GG/GA birth opens the possibility of using the UA as an early game boost through a free Great General; here, the proposed UA gives one at Iron Working, a tech that used to grant one though the Heroic Epic (instead of a Great Writer) in earlier versions of VP. This should cover the original intention behind the "yields on defense/military buildings", and expands Japan's early game with Tradition (who can take advantage of the early 50% GWAM progress and normally struggles with setting defense/military buildings) and Progress (who benefits greatly from early science), giving some extra variability over the straightforward Authority start.
The free Great General and the yields on GG/GA birth should also be insensitive to AI difficulty, neither being particularly affected by the AI parameters and only giving one extra injection of handicap yields (gold and GAP) early on. Overall, the tweaked UA should place a much closer balance parity between human and AI performance for Japan than what we currently have with the "yields on leveling" mechanic, and hopefully address the complaints regarding the yields on defense/military buildings.
Amendment: The Seii Taishogun promotion part is replaced by a free Great General at Iron Working. Rationale adjusted accordingly.
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