A core set of balance changes

[Ahriman]

Maybe... but this could be confusing.
Transparency and simplicity is very important.

 

[Lyoncet]

I think ^1.2 may be a little steep, but I can see an exponential expression as being handy.

On another change entirely, could I just throw out there that someone has to mod in something that will refund at least part of a crossbowman's experience when it upgrades to Rifleman? Even if it gets knocked down by 50% or more, hanging on to an ancient unit because you'll be nerfing it by making it better seems really bass ackwards given the direction they tried to go in terms of upgrading and holding on to your older units.

At least I don't think that's been mentioned here yet. My apologies if I'm mistaken.

Also, let me reiterate that this is one of the best threads on these forums at the moment. Both in original post and the resulting content. +1

 

[ohioastronomy]

I'd suggest lowering the courthouse maintenance to 1-2 from 5. There is already quite sufficient cost to annex with the long (and unrushable) build time.

 

[JanissaryRush]

Need a list of wonders that were built and if you know the city which one did it. That is a factor I would like to use to decide who to attack.

Should be able to get a trade route with an allied city state if you attach a road to it. You would get however much gold you ordinarily if it was one of your cities.

I like how previous games did conquering cities regarding how many buildings get destroyed and any special buildings get destroyed.

 

[Ahriman]

On another change entirely, could I just throw out there that someone has to mod in something that will refund at least part of a crossbowman's experience when it upgrades to Rifleman?

I agree that some kind of change is needed, so ranged promotions aren't totally wasted.

Need a list of wonders that were built and if you know the city which one did it. That is a factor I would like to use to decide who to attack.

Would be nice, but its a minor issue, I'd prefer to keep this thread to really core mechanics/balance issues rather than "it would be nice" features.

Should be able to get a trade route with an allied city state if you attach a road to it. You would get however much gold you ordinarily if it was one of your cities.

This would be too powerful; city state alliances are good enough already.

 

[Lyoncet]

Should be able to get a trade route with an allied city state if you attach a road to it. You would get however much gold you ordinarily if it was one of your cities.

The problem with this, apart from the whole city-states already being really good thing, is that since you use gold for most of your city-state relationship maintenance, getting gold from them would entirely break them. Spend 250 gold to get food + resources + an ally + 350 gold = bad idea. You'd have to pay for the road, sure, but since you end up paying about 8 gpt for a friendly city-state, the profit margin would have to be razor-thin to 1) pay for the road and 2) not get more than you're paying per turn for allied status.

 

[Roxlimn]

Ahriman:

Large cities do not have better production than could have been achieved by having multiple small cities instead, because of how much food it takes to generate large cities.
It is massively faster to grow 2 cities to size 10 than one to size 20 (or even size 15).

Quantify "massively faster."

It's more efficient to have five cities compared to one. This is because of the way the food scales in the game. However, once you get much past five, happiness limits your growth until you get Colosseums and Theatres everywhere, and small cities have bad production.

Getting to size 20 is hard before Biology, but getting to size 15 is not. All you need to do is use Granaries and Water Mills and they get there fast enough. At size 10, cities should have no problems building both those buildings quickly.

This is fairly small benefit.
Providing nothing but territory would be a Not Fun change for many players, and would *overly* nerf the value of building a big army and conquering enemies.

Why would it not be fun? They can always annex. We want annexing to be preferred.

Totally disagree. A puppeted city should be a reward for conquest, not a cost.
It shouldn't be as big a reward as it currently is, but it should still be a reward.
But if you over-nerf puppets, you're going to encourage raze and resettle, or turtling, neither of which are fun. You're also going to prevent the occurence of super-power AIs, who are the only possible late-game threats.
What we want to encourage is going through the short-term pain for long term benefits from annexation.

War and conquest is its own reward. If those players want financial gains and great cities, let them focus on peaceful development!

Happiness is the true limit for growth in Civ 5. Food is very easy to get for cities under size 10, even without Maritimes. Large empires have luxuries smaller empires will not get. That is +5 happiness per luxury resource they acquire, without the attendant costs of Colosseums and Theatres.

Think about that for a minute. Free happiness. Keep the puppet small with Trading Posts, then use the luxuries to power your core cities. That's an inherent advantage, and the rewards of conquest. Keep your enemy cities small, and grow your own.

This still favors conquest, but not as much as it does now.

To prevent razing, razing should have worse consequences. I'm partial to a happiness hit that persists for 10 turns after the city is razed.

This is what my % proposal does in effect.
I'm agnostic as to whether it still needs to change by era. Removing this might be fine, and make them easier to balance.

Actually, your way increases the food in larger cities in disproportionate amounts, since it will also multiply the food being used to sustain the city, not just the excess.

Reducing the food for smaller cities directly will nerf the Maritimes appropriately, without making larger cities more powerful than they are currently.

I played a few more games playing for larger, fewer cities intentionally, regardless of whether or not the situation demanded it. Without India's advantages, small empires have problems sustaining size with fewer luxuries, especially if they don't have contact with lots of friendly City States, as in the case of isolated starts.

A large empire can have upwards of 7 luxuries internally easily. A small empire will be very lucky to secure that many, and they have fewer cities in which to build Colosseums and Theatres, further limiting happiness.

It might make sense to open happiness buildings only to sufficiently large cities.

 

[Stefanskantine]

New idea- Make city walls give a hefty combat bonus against mounted units. This will simultaneously nerf the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" while buffing the little-used city walls.

Fairly realistic also. Horseman could easily overrun an unwalled city, but walls really completely neutralize the combat advantage of being mounted. Horseman would still control the field, but be next to useless for city attacking.

 

[Ahriman]

Quantify "massively faster."

I don't have the data on me (I'm sure its in the XML somewhere), but I am guessing that a size 14 city takes roughly 4x the total food accumulation of a size 7 city, and so 2 size 7 cities take half as much food as a single size 14 city.

It might not be quite double, but it feels like that.

This would occur for example if it took 20 food to reach size 2 from size 1, 30 food to reach size 30 from size 20, 40 food to reach size 4, ... 140 food to reach size 14 from size 13.
So to reach size 7 would take 20+30+40+....+70 = 270 food
While reaching size 14 would take 20+30+40+....+140 = 1040 food.

Why would it not be fun?

Because fun comes from feeling like you're earning an achievement. Conquering a might city only to find that it is... absolutely useless... is not fun.

War and conquest is its own reward.

Uhh, no it isn't. War and conquest is something costly, that requires investment in military force and military techs.

Actually, your way increases the food in larger cities in disproportionate amounts, since it will also multiply the food being used to sustain the city, not just the excess.

It does this, but how is that disproportionate?
It just means that larger cities don't necessarily

without making larger cities more powerful than they are currently

This is a design goal.
Large cities are not currently worth their high food requirements.

A large empire can have upwards of 7 luxuries internally easily. A small empire will be very lucky to secure that many, and they have fewer cities in which to build Colosseums and Theatres, further limiting happiness.

Big cities != to less territory necessarily. You can space your cities out further.

New idea- Make city walls give a hefty combat bonus against mounted units. This will simultaneously nerf the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" while buffing the little-used city walls.

This has been discussed in the thread. It doesn't solve the problem, which is that horsemen are too efficient at destroying field armies. If you destroy their field army, then they're already screwed, making it slightly harder to take the cities doesn't stop this.

 

[Celevin]

You can space your cities out further

Farther shmarther! Sometimes my cities have an obscene spacing between them, like half the map even in the Classical era, and I don't care. This is one of my favourite changes from Civ4 to Civ5. Distance maintenance was stupid.

Even if I'm making a compact empire, sometimes I'll still settle far away if it means a good second city spot. I'll fill in the gaps later.

 

[Ahriman]

This thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388877
lets me correct the population data.

To reach population 7 takes (cumulatively) 222 food.

To reach population 14 takes (cumulatively) 1083 food.

So yeah, larger cities are massively less efficient in terms of food production.

They have advantages (better returns from % multiplier buildings, no SP cost increase) but also disadvantages (early buildings have better culture/happiness:cost ratios, to cities can build 2 colloseums whereas 1 city has to build colloseum and then theatre).

Even if I'm making a compact empire, sometimes I'll still settle far away if it means a good second city spot.

Sure. But I'm confused as to the point.

An empire with large cities is not massively more efficient in a happiness sense. Large cities are not very efficient relative to more small cities. We need to shift the balance towards larger cities.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Very good suggestions Ahriman, I would gladly download this as a mod if you were to make one. And this comes from me, who dislikes all the "balance" mods currently available...

 

[Roxlimn]

Ahriman:

To reach population 7 takes (cumulatively) 222 food.

To reach population 14 takes (cumulatively) 1083 food.

So yeah, larger cities are massively less efficient in terms of food production.

They have advantages (better returns from % multiplier buildings, no SP cost increase) but also disadvantages (early buildings have better culture/happiness:cost ratios, to cities can build 2 colloseums whereas 1 city has to build colloseum and then theatre).

Less efficient, but not massively so. A size 10 going on size 11 needs lots more food, but that's because it has more population that produces more food than a size 1 city, barring Maritimes, which we agree need to be adjusted. It may also have had time to produce Granaries and such.

The big advantage of multiple smaller cities isn't that they need less food - it's that they grow their populations simultaneously. Given two size 5's that need 9 turns to grow, and one size 10 needing the same time, the two size fives will grow two population in the same time that it takes the size 10 to produce one.

Because fun comes from feeling like you're earning an achievement. Conquering a might city only to find that it is... absolutely useless... is not fun.

It's not absolutely useless. It gives you territorial control, access to luxuries, healing, defensive bonuses, and strategic resources. In many ways, it's better than a citadel.

Uhh, no it isn't. War and conquest is something costly, that requires investment in military force and military techs.

For which you get the opportunity to annex new cities. Rewards right there.

Big cities != to less territory necessarily. You can space your cities out further.

Even if you do that, you are more likely to get multiples of the same resource, rather than multiple conglomerations of various luxuries. Generously speaking, if you start off with three, and get three per city (which is an astoundingly fortunate map placement) on three cities, you only get 9. A large empire can get all the luxuries, if it's large enough, and it doesn't have to depend on incredible odds to do so.

In fact, the 7 luxuries is a reasonable estimate of a good catch of luxury resources on one continent. If you want to wage war and annex lots of foreign cities on another continent, then you are no longer going to be dealing with small empires and big cities.

 

[Ahriman]

Less efficient, but not massively so

2 size 7 cities need 444 food. A size 14 city needs 1083 food.
In what world is that not a massive difference?

A size 10 going on size 11 needs lots more food, but that's because it has more population that produces more food than a size 1 city

Why should a size 14 have to allocate massively more of its citizens to food tiles than do the sum of two size 7 cities, just to grow at the same rate?

It gives you territorial control, access to luxuries, healing, defensive bonuses, and strategic resources

These are pretty minor bonuses relative to the value of a city, particularly if you are not using oligarchy.
If this was adopted, conquering enemies would screw your science, because you'd be allocating your happiness to citizens who didn't bring you any science income. Why is that good design?

For which you get the opportunity to annex new cities. Rewards right there.

Why should you have to annex the cities to get any economic benefit at all?
The whole point of puppets is to allow you to get some economic benefit without having to annex.
That benefit is currently too high, but it shouldn't be zero.
If you want the city to be useless for longer, then increase the civil disorder time.

A large empire can get all the luxuries, if it's large enough, and it doesn't have to depend on incredible odds to do so.

I still don't understand what your point is here.
The game currently favors large empires over large cities.
I'm trying to shift that balance back a little.
How is what you are saying relevant?

 

[Roxlimn]

Ahriman:

2 size 7 cities need 444 food. A size 14 city needs 1083 food.
In what world is that not a massive difference?

In the same world where larger cities have more surplus food. A size 7 city typically has something like 10 excess with a modest food focus. A size 14 can have twice that much or more.

Rather than expression in terms of food count, it's more useful to express in terms of turns elapsed. This is where, as I said, multiple cities have an advantage. Even given similar rates of growth, two size 7 cities produce population at twice the rate.

These are pretty minor bonuses relative to the value of a city, particularly if you are not using oligarchy.
If this was adopted, conquering enemies would screw your science, because you'd be allocating your happiness to citizens who didn't bring you any science income. Why is that good design?

It erects a solid barrier against eternal expansion through war. Since your science is getting tanked (quite apart from happiness), at some point, you have to stop to consolidate by either formally annexing the new cities, or resettling them.

I still don't understand what your point is here.
The game currently favors large empires over large cities.
I'm trying to shift that balance back a little.
How is what you are saying relevant?

City growth is determined by two factors: food and happiness. More, smaller cities cost less to keep happy, since happiness buildings go up in cost and maintenance, and they spread out more to get more luxuries. This means that more cities have an inherently higher happiness cap.

If we want bigger cities to be more competitive, this issue needs to be addressed as well.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

These are pretty minor bonuses relative to the value of a city, particularly if you are not using oligarchy.
If this was adopted, conquering enemies would screw your science, because you'd be allocating your happiness to citizens who didn't bring you any science income. Why is that good design?


Why should you have to annex the cities to get any economic benefit at all?
The whole point of puppets is to allow you to get some economic benefit without having to annex.
That benefit is currently too high, but it shouldn't be zero.
If you want the city to be useless for longer, then increase the civil disorder time.

If a puppet only gave Territorial control, and no economic benefits, it should have no economic costs.

The point of puppets is to let you hold onto a city without it giving Social Policy costs.

Puppets should
Increase Social Policy costs OR not put culture in your Social Policy Pile
Charge Building Maintenance OR not produce any Gold for your Treasury
Cause Unhappiness OR not produce any Science/Units/Wonders/Happiness


Annexed cities take the First option
Puppets should take the second.... in all factors

Also if the Puppet charge building maintenance, you should be in charge of what it builds... I'd favor a Puppet that you still controlled, but if it didn't contribute OR deduct from your empire as a whole, I'd feel fine if that Puppet stayed uncontrollable.

 

[Khaim]

City growth is determined by two factors: food and happiness. More, smaller cities cost less to keep happy, since happiness buildings go up in cost and maintenance, and they spread out more to get more luxuries. This means that more cities have an inherently higher happiness cap.

Not to take a side here, but more cities have more unhappiness per capita. They still might come out ahead, happiness-wise, but not as much as you seem to think.

Another factor worth considering: Multiple small cities can assign all their citizens to high-yield tiles, whereas a single large city will soon run out of such tiles and have to settle for less.

 

[Ahriman]

In the same world where larger cities have more surplus food. A size 7 city typically has something like 10 excess with a modest food focus. A size 14 can have twice that much or more.

?
Food production is proportional to tiles worked.
[Actually, smaller cities have a minor advantage, because they also have the base yield of the city tile, and so spread this over more citizens.]

If a size 7 city has 10 extra food while a size 14 city has 20 extra food, then two size 7 cities have 20 extra food - the same as the size 14 city.
But the size 14 cities grows slower, because it takes massively more food to grow from 14 to 15 than it does from 7 to 8 twice (in both size 7 cities).

It erects a solid barrier against eternal expansion through war. Since your science is getting tanked (quite apart from happiness), at some point, you have to stop to consolidate by either formally annexing the new cities, or resettling them.

Why is this a desirable design goal?
Expansion through successful war, even with puppets, should still be advantageous (if you ignore the costs of the military units). Making puppets a drain on your civ is NOT a good design goal.

If we want bigger cities to be more competitive, this issue needs to be addressed as well.

So, your point was to undercut the entire rest of your argument?

The point of puppets is to let you hold onto a city without it giving Social Policy costs.

No, the point of puppets is to be able to expand in a way that doesn't give you full expansion benefits, but doesn't cost you as much short-term happiness.

 

[Martin Alvito]

In the same world where larger cities have more surplus food. A size 7 city typically has something like 10 excess with a modest food focus. A size 14 can have twice that much or more.

Go read the population data thread.

Ahriman's two size 7 cities require 76 food each to grow. Your size 14 requires 194. Implication: you need a 25 food surplus against his 10 food surpluses to grow half as fast as he grows. You need five times as much food as he has in a size 7 to keep pace with him on growth.

There are four benefits associated with the large city:
1) Having the entire hammer output in a single stream - primarily means more Wonders faster
2) Half the number of buildings - fewer Hammers invested and lower maintenance
3) Easier to defend
4) +2 Happiness

But the flip side is he has a lot more cities to pump Happiness buildings into, and Maritime bonuses operate in every city he produces. If he has a decent income stream (and he should), he can build them in production centers, buy them in commerce centers, triple or quadruple your population in short order, and proceed to bury you in every productive dimension in the game.

Moral of the story: a bunch of midsize, productive cities beat monster cities any day of the week. This should be obvious from the exponential nature of the growth algorithm.

 

[Ahriman]

But the flip side is he has a lot more cities to pump Happiness buildings into, and Maritime bonuses operate in every city he produces. If he has a decent income stream (and he should), he can build them in production centers, buy them in commerce centers, triple or quadruple your population in short order, and proceed to bury you in every productive dimension in the game.

And also: I get to build more copies of the more efficient cheaper buildings. If I want to get +8 happiness, I can build/buy 2 colosseums, rather than a colosseum and a theatre.
2 Colosseums are cheaper, and need less tech, so I can focus on military tech.

My two cities will also claim culture tiles faster, and will give cover more tiles with bombardment.

Moral of the story: a bunch of midsize, productive cities beat monster cities any day of the week. This should be obvious from the exponential nature of the growth algorithm.

Precisely. And the best way to change this dynamic is to tinker with the food output requirements, both from maritime city states and in population growth requirements.