(5-CP) Rebalance Ancient Ruins and Disallow Non-Recon Units Picking Them Up

[azum4roll]

Current mechanics:
Ancient ruins can be picked up by any non-barbarian units (CS unit AI may avoid them but probably can still accidentally stumble into one), or claimed by border growth. Either way, it disappears from the map.

If a player unit/border claims a ruin, some random benefit is given to the player, and the plot is added to the "Archaeological Record" to have a chance to spawn an Antiquity Site later.

List of ruins:

• Population: +1 to the nearest city. Cannot be chosen if empire is unhappy or player has no cities.
• Culture: +15 to empire, scaling with game speed and era, multiplied by (number of policies excluding free ones / 2) (min. 1). Affected by unit type and promotions.
• Pantheon Faith: gain amount of required for pantheon (50 in standard), scaling with era. Affected by unit type and promotions. Cannot be chosen before turn 20, if player has founded a pantheon, or if any player has founded a religion.
• Prophet Faith: gain amount of equal to 33% of the next Great Prophet cost, scaling with era. NOT affected by unit type and promotions. Cannot be chosen before turn 20, if player has not founded a pantheon, if player has founded a religion, or if no more religions are available.
• Gold: + to empire. Amount is 50, 55, 60, ..., 145, with 5% occurrence for each, scaling with game speed and era. Affected by unit type and promotions. Random amount is fixed for the same ruin on the same turn.
• Map: reveal a random unrevealed city within range 10 (heavier weight for farther away cities), and all tiles within range 4 of it. Can only be chosen if a recon unit claims the ruin. The unit gains 1XP per revealed tile (up to 61XP).
• Tech: gain a random Ancient Era tech that's not currently being researched but can be researched. Cannot be chosen if there's no tech available to pick from. Random tech is fixed for the same ruin on the same turn, but switching research can affect the result if you really want to abuse it.
• Upgrade Unit: upgrade the unit claiming the ruin. Cannot be chosen if the unit has already upgraded by a ruin before, cannot be upgraded, or the ruin is not claimed by a unit.
• Production: +30 to the nearest city, scaling with game speed and era. Affected by unit type and promotions. Cannot be chosen if player has no cities.
• Golden Age: +200 to empire, scaling with game speed and era. Affected by unit type and promotions. Cannot be chosen before turn 30, or if player is already in a Golden Age.
• Tiles: the nearest city gains 4 neutral tiles, as if it naturally grows 4 times. Does not increase next border growth cost. Triggers instant yields from Spain UA, but not from other sources. Cannot be chosen if player has no cities. CAN be chosen if there are no tiles available to grow.
• Experience: +20XP to the unit claiming the ruin. Does not scale with game speed or era. Affected by unit type and promotions. Cannot be chosen before turn 10, if the unit is a recon unit, the unit cannot gain promotions, or the ruin is not claimed by a unit.
• Worker: gain a Worker on the ruin tile. Settler difficulty only.
• Settler: gain a Settler on the ruin tile. Settler difficulty only. Likely the only way Venice gets a Settler.

Proposal:
1. Only allow recon units and border growth to pick up ruins. (Sponsor will need to make this a CustomModOption)

• Remove the Experience ruin (they're already unpickable by recon/city)
• Remove the Treasure Hunter promotion, as they're already the only units that claim ruins. Now the ruins don't have to be quantifiable.
• Incentivize exploring with recon units and hunting barbarians with other units. They may still work together to clear a camp and claim a ruin beneath. AI may need to be adjusted to not go for ruins with non-recon units.
• No need to worry about CS units taking ruins now since they can't have recon units (but CS cities can still claim them)

2. Rebalance some types of ruins:

• Pantheon Faith: reduce amount of faith to 60% of a pantheon. Now it merely helps you towards founding a pantheon rather than immediately enabling it, if you delay Shrine.
• Prophet Faith: reduce amount of faith to 25% of the next Great Prophet cost, and stop scaling with era. Religion founding shouldn't be too random.
• Gold: remove random part, give constant 100 instead, scaling with game speed and era.
• Map: reduce reveal radius to 3. XP reduced to 37 as a result.
• Tech: removed. It's too random and too strong.
• Production: increase to 50 , to stay balanced with Gold.
• Golden Age: removed. It's undesirable to have a Golden Age on turn 30. Stays if either of the Golden Age cost proposals pass.
• Tiles: cannot be chosen if player has a trait that benefits from buying/naturally gaining tiles, or if the nearest city has no tiles available to grow.
• Science: NEW, +35 , scaling with game speed and era. This gives ~60% of an early Ancient Era tech, similar to the Culture ruin which gives 60% of the first policy.

EDIT: see Green text

 

[N.Core]

Proposals 1 & 2 must be separated.

Also, I'm not too fond of the number 1, sometimes you don't have any recon unit nearby and want to grab a ruin before someone else takes it. I'm afraid the implementation will be DLL level and disallow revert back by changing a table value. Please add in the proposal that the sponsor must add an option to revert it if they want to implement it. Even though VP is balanced around standard size, there are other people who play in other map sizes.

Also, for number 2, I'm not sure why you want to kneecap civs that are taking benefit from getting tiles. You also make them able to get other ruins' benefits easier because of the lesser number of random options.

 

[azum4roll]

Proposals 1 & 2 must be separated.

They're both counters to proposal 18. I'm not sure how I can separate them, since I can't make two counterproposals to the same proposal.

Also, I'm not too fond of the number 1, sometimes you don't have any recon unit nearby and want to grab a ruin before someone else takes it. I'm afraid the implementation will be DLL level and disallow revert back by changing a table value. Please add in the proposal that the sponsor must add an option to revert it if they want to implement it. Even though VP is balanced around standard size, there are other people who play in other map sizes.

I don't know how this is related to map size. There's already a high incentive to build more recon units in larger maps, since there are enough tiles to make several superscouts.
It can be made a CustomModOption, but the two sub-points will not be affected by this.

Also, for number 2, I'm not sure why you want to kneecap civs that are taking benefit from getting tiles. You also make them able to get other ruins' benefits easier because of the lesser number of random options.

Gaining tiles is harmful to both Russia and America. It's also not the first instance of certain civs affecting number of random options; Byzantium can get the faith ruins even if all religions have been founded, as long as she hasn't founded.

 

[Recursive]

They may still work together to clear a camp and claim a ruin beneath.

Barbarian Camps can't spawn on Ancient Ruins. The camp spawning clears the ruin (or maybe it's the Barbarian unit)?

Proposals 1 & 2 must be separated.

That's up to the Magi.

 

[Tekamthi]

I like it! a recon-only mini-game within civ world. imo these units should have significant distinctions from the pure combat units, and proposal moves them in this direction without really disturbing anything important.

Not in favor of removing the tech bonus though; it is strong but this has always been the grand prize of the goody huts in every civ franchise title -- might as well propose deleting settlers, its anti-civ

 

[N.Core]

I don't know how this is related to map size. There's already a high incentive to build more recon units in larger maps, since there are enough tiles to make several superscouts.

I usually have more regular military units than recon units solely because there are more barbarians on bigger maps. I usually keep 3-4 recon units and 5-6 regular military units so then I can farm barb camps easier. You always need more regular military than recon on bigger maps.

 

[pitofanavocado]

Gaining tiles is harmful to both Russia and America. It's also not the first instance of certain civs affecting number of random options; Byzantium can get the faith ruins even if all religions have been founded, as long as she hasn't founded.

You are increasing the likelihood of Russia/America getting every other ruin type, AND helping utilize their unique ability.

In Byzantium’s case, you are decreasing the likelihood of them getting every other ruin type in exchange for supporting their unique ability.

Also, is a tile ruin always harmful to Russia/America? Finding one early can be helpful to any civ, but I’m sure it’s situational how beneficial/detrimental it is compared to their unique ability.

 

[Rekk]

Barbarian Camps can't spawn on Ancient Ruins. The camp spawning clears the ruin (or maybe it's the Barbarian unit)?

The camp. They are both improvments.

 

[azum4roll]

You are increasing the likelihood of Russia/America getting every other ruin type, AND helping utilize their unique ability.

In Byzantium’s case, you are decreasing the likelihood of them getting every other ruin type in exchange for supporting their unique ability.

Also, is a tile ruin always harmful to Russia/America? Finding one early can be helpful to any civ, but I’m sure it’s situational how beneficial/detrimental it is compared to their unique ability.

It's like saying the tile ruin is less useful compared to other ruin types. It's not the case; tile ruins help your capital reach the 3rd ring and grab useful resources much earlier.

America wants to buy tiles, and Russia wants as many tiles to grow to as possible.

 

[Rekk]

Not in favor of removing the tech bonus though; it is strong but this has always been the grand prize of the goody huts in every civ franchise title -- might as well propose deleting settlers, its anti-civ

It could instead be science towards a random tech, equivalent to a certain tier cost (eg the first tier). That way the free tech doesn't scale like crazy, while you still get the "random tech" if you get it early enough.

 

[Tekamthi]

It could instead be science towards a random tech, equivalent to a certain relier cost. That way the free tech doesn't scale like crazy, while you still get the "random tech" if you get it early enough.

as long as the effect is you can still claim those first-level techs 100% from the hut, that's acceptably within spirit of this civ staple. Effectively you are INCREASING the science bonus by doing this, as sometimes the goody hut unlocks a tech player has already partially researched... by giving level 1 tech's worth of beakers, player would be getting more science from these huts in those cases. In 43-civ game there are effectively zero ruins left past turn 10, its kind of moot issue in the games I play.

I agree later techs should not be available via the goody huts, though I was under the impression this was addressed a long time ago. Maybe I am conflating some other memory.

 

[azum4roll]

I literally listed all the mechanics up there.

 

[Tekamthi]

it'll be a no from me on the tech nerf, as its been proposed in OP. Nobody's winning any games cuz they got animal husbandry on turn 5 instead of 25. Some good ideas in proposal though, I like the recon-only aspect: Consider making this its own proposal.

 

[Hokiefan00]

I like this proposal better than the one I proposed.

I like the removal of the free tech because it's way too powerful. Especially for the Shoshone who can pick and choose their reward. I would be more on board with keeping it if it was limited to only the first-level techs like Tekamthi suggested.

Why would gaining tiles be harmful to Russia? It specifies that they are treated as being gained naturally, so that should proc her ability, correct? Wouldn't that be an extra benefit?

 

[pitofanavocado]

It's like saying the tile ruin is less useful compared to other ruin types. It's not the case; tile ruins help your capital reach the 3rd ring and grab useful resources much earlier.

America wants to buy tiles, and Russia wants as many tiles to grow to as possible.

Yes.. I agree. But aren’t you saying that the tile growth ruin is harmful to Russia/America?

I’m unclear on how the tile growth ruin works in relation to Russia/America UA.

@Hokiefan00 says that it is treated as natural tile growth, so it seems like it would be even better for Russia especially.

Does the tile growth ruin increase cost of tile purchasing for America? In any case, since purchasing cost is reset upon settling a new city, it doesn’t seem all that detrimental.

I’m mainly failing to see how the tile growth ruin is harmful to America/Russia.

 

[Anarcomu]

Well, I remember someone saying that apart from Spain's UA, the tiles do not proc bonuses from expansion. So, having additional tiles means that you reach the moment where you have no additional tiles to expand to sooner. My opinion is that it happen very late in the game, to the point that it becomes irrelevant.

 

[rkkn]

Why would gaining tiles be harmful to Russia? It specifies that they are treated as being gained naturally, so that should proc her ability, correct? Wouldn't that be an extra benefit?

It works for Spain, giving them the bonuses. Spain gets it from *any* means of acquiring tiles, including buying them and the initial founding. It's extremely good for Spain.
It does not work for Russia. When I'm playing Russia I hate getting the tiles since it means a lot of bonus will be lost.

 

[azum4roll]

Edited: Golden Age ruin stays if either of the GA cost proposal passes.

 

[samjooma]

Proposals 1 & 2 must be separated.

They're both counters to proposal 18. I'm not sure how I can separate them, since I can't make two counterproposals to the same proposal.

I think you could make 1 its own proposal, not a counterproposal. There would be one vote about the balance of ancient ruin rewards, and another vote about recon units being the only units that can take ancient ruins.
Then you could also simplify "(5-44) Shoshone UA change" where you added "If the proposal that disallows non-recon units to claim ruins passes, also make Shoshone ignore this rule. (Can claim Ancient Ruins with any Unit.)".
You could move the Shoshone exception to the new proposal and remove it from (5-44).

 

[azum4roll]

I sponsor this.