(9-VT) Factory and Coaling Station Tweak

[redrum68]

Motivation
If you have a very wide empire with 15+ cities with factories then their production scaling can become quite crazy (30+ production per factory) and just keeps increasing for each additional city with a factory. Coaling stations can be good for large cities with high base production but tend to be much weaker for wider empires. The idea is to create more tension and interaction between these 2 coal requiring buildings by moving the +2 to Factory in all Cities from Factory to Coaling Stations. This means that you often will want to build some of each since they then benefit from each other. It also means to get the same large scaling factory flat production bonus for wide empires you'd need twice the coal since you need to build both factories and coaling stations.

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Proposal Summary

• Move +2 to Factory in all Cities from Factory/Steam Mill to Coaling Station (Coaling Stations will provide scaling production buff to all Factories rather than Factories providing the buff to themselves)
• Increase Factory/Steam Mill base Production from 5 to 10

 

[Stalker0]

I'll disagree on this one. Between the two, Coaling stations are not only cheaper, and come out sooner, but they generally are just better. The only real reason I build factories over them in other cities is for the scaling bonus.

Now at +10 hammers for the factory, you might think it is competitive, but thats taken out by even just 5 coaling stations.

To me this makes the coaling station simply a no brainer over the factory.

 

[redrum68]

I'll disagree on this one. Between the two, Coaling stations are not only cheaper, and come out sooner, but they generally are just better. The only real reason I build factories over them in other cities is for the scaling bonus.

Now at +10 hammers for the factory, you might think it is competitive, but thats taken out by even just 5 coaling stations.

To me this makes the coaling station simply a no brainer over the factory.

My factory disagrees with you.

 

[Stalker0]

My factory disagrees with you.

View attachment 753725

In the current game, of course....that's the point. Factories are quite good right now, and coaling stations can take big cities even further.

But all of that bonus there would go to the coaling station in your new proposal, making the coaling station the way to go, not the factory.

 

[redrum68]

In the current game, of course....that's the point. Factories are quite good right now, and coaling stations can take big cities even further.

But all of that bonus there would go to the coaling station in your new proposal, making the coaling station the way to go, not the factory.

Oh I think its unclear. I mean the Coaling Stations will give Factories +2 Production not themselves. I updated the first post to clarify that.

 

[Stalker0]

Oh I think its unclear. I mean the Coaling Stations will give Factories +2 Production not themselves. I updated the first post to clarify that.

Ah, yes that is very different.

This in theory is more in line what you were intending, but I actually wonder if this will help Tall over Wide. The main reason is....coal tends to be one of the more precious strategic resources, it tends to be very difficult to get a lot of it. When your tall, its VERY difficult....I normally have to expand to several areas to really get a good amount of coal.

So what I could see this becoming is....Tall gets no bonus, Wide gets less bonus.....overall late game production is heavily nerfed. I possibly see the desire for that, is that your desire with this proposal?

 

[redrum68]

Ah, yes that is very different.

This in theory is more in line what you were intending, but I actually wonder if this will help Tall over Wide. The main reason is....coal tends to be one of the more precious strategic resources, it tends to be very difficult to get a lot of it. When your tall, its VERY difficult....I normally have to expand to several areas to really get a good amount of coal.

So what I could see this becoming is....Tall gets no bonus, Wide gets less bonus.....overall late game production is heavily nerfed. I possibly see the desire for that, is that your desire with this proposal?

So my theory is here Tall is more or less the same as they usually would build Coaling Stations with their coal since they wouldn't have enough scaling for Factories. Wide is nerfed a bit as they need to build both coaling stations and factories to get the same scaling bonus that they could get with just factories now.

 

[Stalker0]

coming back to this, this idea does have some appeal. Its a very solid nerf to wide prod late game, like it will be QUITE noticable to late game production costs....but maybe that's a good thing.

 

[redrum68]

coming back to this, this idea does have some appeal. Its a very solid nerf to wide prod late game, like it will be QUITE noticable to late game production costs....but maybe that's a good thing.

I would say it will be noticeable for wider (15+ city) empires and if anything it might let us better balance late game production costs as less extreme values for factories for those very wide empires.

 

[Stalker0]

I would say it will be noticeable for wider (15+ city) empires and if anything it might let us better balance late game production costs as less extreme values for factories for those very wide empires.

yeah similar to our chancery discussion, removing some swinginess there might have appeal. I do agree with you its likely to keep Tall about the same and focus nerf on Wide after I gave it some more thought.

 

[hokath]

I wonder how the AI understands Factory self-scaling in the context of limited coal.
Does it spend its coal on Coaling Stations, because they unlock first, and then is unable to build Factories?
Does it then know it can sell the Coaling Stations and make a tonne of Factories to achieve a better outcome? I imagine not?

 

[ElliotS]

I do worry that we're swinging too far against "Wide" and also focusing on the results of someone running away from the game instead of what allows them to run away with the game. I mean if you have 15+ cities you're probably running away with the game.

Are no buildings supposed to be better when you have more cities? Is peak civ gameplay sitting in the corner with 5 cities attempting to beeline a science victory? I don't want to be hyperbolic and claim that this suggestion alone would cause that, but I would urge caution and discretion on which suggestions to use to attempt to make wide a good gameplan instead of (nearly) required.

 

[hokath]

I think wide vs tall is important to keep in mind, but the issue here is more that whilst most buildings mean 2x as many cities means 2x as many yields, this particular effect is 2x as many Cities is like 4x as many yields.
It has second order scaling.

 

[ElliotS]

I think wide vs tall is important to keep in mind, but the issue here is more that whilst most buildings mean 2x as many cities means 2x as many yields, this particular effect is 2x as many Cities is like 4x as many yields.
It has second order scaling.

I mean I guess the question is: Do we want to eliminate most or all sources of second order scaling? They're extremely common in 4x games and tend to be pretty nice when you're building them, but it's reasonable to argue they're a major obstacle to balancing things well.

 

[Lystrin]

Good proposal. Only thing I'd add is a compensation nerf to the steam mill since this basically doesnt affect england due to its 0 coal cost on the factory allowing it to put coaling stations everywhere to similar effect. Unless you think that's desirable ofc.

 

[redrum68]

Good proposal. Only thing I'd add is a compensation nerf to the steam mill since this basically doesnt affect england due to its 0 coal cost on the factory allowing it to put coaling stations everywhere to similar effect. Unless you think that's desirable ofc.

Might be a small buff to England but they are awful right now so I think that's fine. Also if England has very low coal then it could actually be a nerf as their steam mills will be weaker. Gives them a bigger incentive to still prioritize getting coal.

 

[Stalker0]

MAGI: This is a cool idea, but it could have a series impact to the late game. As such the Magi are vetoing this one under the

speculative proposals that might have an unpredictable effect on balance clause for this session

Feel free to bring this one up in the next congress.

PROPOSAL VETOED

 

[hokath]

I think the big problem here is that although the magnitude of the change looks smaller than my one, closer to the current situation, in fact it isn't.
This would introduce a much larger delta between a "high coal" civ that can build both buildings and a "low coal" civ that cannot.
I'm still concerned about the AI approach to coal in both this and the current VP situation.
I suspect we might want to have something like this proposal + Factories require Coaling Stations to build, or something like that.

Let's discuss again next congress.

 

[Recursive]

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