[DLL] (8-NS) Netherlands UA change and Doelen adjustment

[Nightmare Dusk]

Original: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/8-29-4uc-netherlands.690043/

Wisselbanken
Can go into debt at 2% interest. (ie. maintenance cost per turn for every -50 gold stored)
Receive 2% of your Gold reserves as Science (ie. gain +1 per turn for every 50 gold stored)

Note: Negative GPT while you have 0 or less gold will still affect your science per turn, but there is no penalty for having negative gold as long as you are still earning.

Doelen change:
Remove yields for every monopoly on empire
Add ability that halves the gold steal value of enemy spy actions in this city.

The Goedendag proposed and base kit remains the same
Rationale:
Reasons why the current UA is bad:

• The current UA is too hard of an idea to get to work in multiplayer.
  • Either you set up house rules that people have to trade with the Dutch, but even then the value of the UA will be priced in, neutralizing its value
  • Or you don't establish any rules and make the Dutch fundamentally dependent on the willingness of other players to trade with them. This leaves the civ ripe for abuse and trolling, because other players know that they can simply turn off the Dutch player's UA by refusing to trade for even the most advantageous of deals. Unlike AI, the players will absolutely cut off their nose to spite their face, because it's funny.
• The current UA is inherently unbalanced even in singleplayer.
  • Either you set up the ai to drastically force the Dutch player to pay more for luxuries, and pay to even export luxuries, gutting the bonuses from the kit
  • Or you don't establish any rules and make the Dutch fundamentally broken cause the other ai aren't taking thier extra and from trade into account
• The current UA's balance feels too loose to be a mainline VP ability. It feels like I'm playing a modmod.
  • You can double your culture with this ability in certain stages of the game.
• The Dutch are too strong right now
  • We have have repeated reports of players able to reliably push the UA to its limits and create an unstoppable culture engine that catapults them to secure leads.
  • The AI rankings seem to indicate the computer is also quite good at exploiting the Dutch kit
• The UA name is dumb
  • The UA name used to be more egregious when there was a UNW called 'East India Company'. Even with the UNW name changed to chartered company, that is still what the Dutch East India Company is, so the UA and the UNW are referring to the exact same thing.

Reasons why this new UA is good:

• The ability to enter into debt is totally unique and creates an interesting puzzle for players to solve on how to maximize the use of the ability
• Creates different approach to gold management:
  • Do you buy an extra pathfinder or worker turn 1 and bear the increased maintenance cost, or do you save up to try to get an early science lead?
  • Do you work wealth processes to bank up?
  • How do you deal with espionage in this circumstance? Is it worth trying to hold onto lots of gold knowing that makes you a target for other players?
  • Do you save your money as much as possible or put your money to work? Can you make every gold spent worth more than 0.02 per turn?
• reference to the first central banking system in the world. The Dutch created the idea of a central bank as a lender of last resort. This UA references their economic ingenuity

 

[azum4roll]

The current UA is inherently unbalanced even in singleplayer.

• Either you set up the ai to drastically force the Dutch player to pay more for luxuries, and pay to even export luxuries, gutting the bonuses from the kit
• Or you don't establish any rules and make the Dutch fundamentally broken cause the other ai aren't taking thier extra and from trade into account

They're set up in a way that both sides of the deal benefits just as much from it, i.e. they share the value of the luxury and the 3 from the UA.

This also increases the trade opinion modifier for both players more than non-Dutch deals, so they'll be less likely to declare war or be attacked. Which is good for the AI.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

That's the problem, the dutch players have to trade away part of thier UA bonuses to get the bonuses in the first place. And atm, it's not enough. If you want a dutch luxury you honestly should always be getting it for free, or even more bizare sounding, the dutch player pays the other player to take thier luxury of thier hands. That sounds awful as the dutch player, even though it's worth it

 

[azum4roll]

Sometimes you need to think less like a human. Sharing benefits with another player isn't the end of the world, as long as that other player isn't the winning one. You may also gain an ally out of it.

 

[invar]

Sometimes you need to think less like a human. Sharing benefits with another player isn't the end of the world, as long as that other player isn't the winning one. You may also gain an ally out of it.

Being forced to depend on other players to trigger a primary mechanic means the other players hold the power in the bargain. Both Netherland's UA and UB depend on this scenario, where even if they do get their UA from friendly-ish players, they should rightfully never get their UB if the other players are playing to win.

By refusing to trade with the Netherlands, it kneecaps their kit making them a non-threat to winning the game. By kneecapping them, and it makes them look more interesting to conquering civs making any non-warring civs safer. There's no scenario in which withholding luxuries is the wrong move.

Isn't making a sacrifice to make an ally a very human way of thinking?

 

[azum4roll]

There's no scenario in which withholding luxuries is the wrong move.

You gain way less gold by trading those to other players, or not trading them at all.

The last part of the UA (monopoly stuff) is a noob trap and should be removed.

 

[invar]

You gain way less gold by trading those to other players, or not trading them at all.

Yes, but that's ignoring the other half of the scenario. It costs Netherlands less to buy, even though they give you more gold. They make it out ahead of the trade as well.

It costs other players more overall to buy from you when Netherlands is in the game - you can charge another player more because Netherlands is offering more, get more money from the other player (a direct cost to them and a direct benefit to you), and screw over Netherlands by not selling to the Netherlands (a direct cost to them, and indirect benefit to you).

I'm glad we agree in the monopoly stuff, if it's a noob trap, therefore it should be addressed because a noob trap is an unfriendly mechanic.

 

[azum4roll]

It costs other players more overall to buy from you when Netherlands is in the game - you can charge another player more because Netherlands is offering more, get more money from the other player (a direct cost to them and a direct benefit to you), and screw over Netherlands by not selling to the Netherlands (a direct cost to them, and indirect benefit to you).

This is only true if you only have one of the luxury to sell, and even then, you'll be selling that copy to the Netherlands since you gain more that way.

 

[invar]

Please elaborate, how is it only true if I only have one of the luxury to sell?

 

[azum4roll]

Let's say you have 2 copies of luxuries you're willing to sell, and 5 players (including Netherlands) are willing to buy them.

The obvious first choice is selling to Netherlands (since it gives the most profit). Nobody else's going to offer the same price as this deal since it would be a loss to them.

Netherlands CAN buy another copy with the current UA, but unless they get a monopoly with this copy, they aren't going to buy it.
Your best choice is now one of the other 4 players, and you can't sell it at a higher price because Netherlands won't buy it any more.

 

[invar]

We're getting lost in the trees and not seeing the forest if we continue debating if it's better to trade or not to trade with the Netherlands.

The important fact is: opposing players can force Netherlands to lose by default by banding together and denying their UA.

 

[azum4roll]

opposing players can force Netherlands to lose by default by banding together and denying their UA.

A band of players can pretty much force any other player to lose, if doing so from the very start of the game. The simple act of staying at war throughout the entire game will do.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

Staying at war isn't always enough to prevent a person from winning. The problem with netherlands partially is how easy it is to hurt them. As they start doing better in the game, you just force them to pay more and more and more, or not trade at all as the game progressives. Obviously you can do that and other things to stop other civs, but no other civ has thier UA just stop functioning at the drop of a hat like that

 

[hokath]

MAGI:
DLL includes the changed Doelen compared to base
Also this will probably need special AI consideration to manage the debt so I've marked that as complex

 

[Recursive]

Also this will probably need special AI consideration to manage the debt so I've marked that as complex

AI changes are still DLL.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.