A core set of balance changes

[kazantzakis]

First off, nice job Ahriman. Second, I'd like to see a Mod containing these sorts of changes. Most of the Mods I've seen seem to neglect what I feel are the biggest problems with the game as is. I'm not so concerned about diminished tile returns (except the Food bonuses), poorly designed Wonders (Civ IV taught me to win without them) and Policies (if you know some are useless, don't pick them). These all seem to be periphery issues not balance issues to me, thus I find it refreshing to see what I feel are the biggest issues discussed in such a concise manner. Now to address your OP:

1. There is seemingly no reason to annex conquered cities right now. With a small, well played military, the AI can be beat and very rarely do I find myself losing units, thus one of the reasons to Annex, directed production, particularly units, is really of miniscule importance. With the current rules in place, I'm already getting everything I want from a puppet; money, science and culture combined with lower policy costs. If I trade post every tile within the puppet's boundaries, even the useless structures (walls, barracks etc.) are more than offset by the money I bring in. I like the idea of a percentage cap and 30% seems to be pretty good. That said, if you limited what a puppet can produce, per your original point, I think even 50% would be reasonable. Tied in with this is the cost/maintnence of the courthouse when annexing. -5 gold and 40 turns to complete mean if you do decide to annex, its a painful process. Razing and resettling should not be the better choice IMO.

2. Agree

3. Strongly agree. The current tech pace vs. building pace is out of whack. I've found myself with a list of potential structure and units in my most developed city that will never get touched. The game seems to dissuade city progression in favor of conquest to such a degree that its foolish to build even beneficial buildings and units. Perhaps a combination of reduced hammer costs for structures (but not units to avoid unit spam) and slightly higher tech costs would have a similar effect as just straight raising tech costs.

4. I agree with previous posters who asserted the best change would be reduced movement. Maintain their ability to move after attack, but, with less movement, spearmen/pikemen could counterattack.

5. I think having defensive improvements both buffed from where they are now as well as increasing a cities ranged strength would vastly improve their combat effectiveness and viability. The 1 hp per shot ranged attack is essentially useless (who takes ten turns to kill a city and who leaves a severely wounded unit within range of a city?)

6. the discussion on this subject has been thorough and I don't have much to add except to say, i think a comibnation of the percentage you propose and hard cap on total food distributed is ino order. the problems currently are twofold: 1. the overall benefits are disproportionally large and only increase in effectiveness with the a greater number of cities. Thus a combination of the two seems to be the best route. As for the actual percentages, smarter folks than I will have to determine the most effective ratios and likewise for the cap. (currently i think half again as much as the cultural bonus, per era)

7. The numbers in your previous post on growing 2 size 7 and 1 size fourteen really explain the absurdity of this. With a three hex BFH, cities should be larger than previous iteration of civ, and yet most of mine are smaller than before. Any mod which corrects this gets my thumbs up.

8. I'm indifferent on this. If the nerfs to horsemen discussed in #4 are enacted, this becomes less necessary. I'd prefer not to repeat the civ IV limitation to civs without Copper or horses nearby.

9. The best base tile in the game should not be a riverside hill.

10. Mines should outperform lumbermills in terms of hammers, and perhaps gold. The problem with changing yields though is the potential greater ramification this has on the game in its entirety and as such, I find it hard to advocate any.

11. Agree strongly. As currently designed, they're useless.

Thanks again for a good post. Now if someone would actually put a mod together that did some of these things, I'd be the first to play it.

 

[alpaca]

What do you think about giving maritime city states a growth bonus (i.e. a food excess modifier)? The code for that should already be there and if indeed food surplus is proportional to the number of citizens as you say it should be equivalent to a bonus to tile yield. It's also simpler to grasp because it works in the same way as a WLTKD, something players already know.

 

[Roxlimn]

Ahriman:

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).

The problem there isn't food but simple arithmetic. Even if we fix the food curve so that size 14 cities grow as fast as size 7 cities, two size 7 cities will still outgrow a size 14 city two to one, meaning that small cities retain their advantages unless we fix it so that larger cities grow faster than smaller ones, which sounds wrong to me.

Martin Alvito:

That is precisely what I was referring to. Many smaller cities can provide more happiness at less cost, so the happiness cap of an empire consisting of many cities is larger than the cap of a smaller empire. This has at least as great an effect on dampening the power of larger cities as the food issue.

 

[Celevin]

Change Cultural city states if you're going to modify Maritime ones.

How it's set up now is Maritimes are more beneficial for large empires, and Culturals are better for small empires. You're now going to change Maritimes to benefit both equally.

I suggest you give 1 culture to the capitol, then .3 culture (depending on map size) culture to each smaller city as a ratio. Multiply it accordingly until it's balanced. If we set it up this way, then it scales perfectly with the number of cities, and gives small and big empires the same benefit.

 

[Roxlimn]

Changing the impact of Maritimes to be percent-based doesn't make them worse for larger empires. They're still better for larger empires, just not as ridiculously better as they are now.

 

[pi-r8]

Changing the impact of Maritimes to be percent-based doesn't make them worse for larger empires. They're still better for larger empires, just not as ridiculously better as they are now.

It would at least prevent you from being able to feed most of your cities using nothing but Maritime food.

 

[Calouste]

Regarding Puppet States, a solution might be to tie them in to the number of cities you already own, so that you can only have 1 Puppet per 1-2 cities you already have. You get a notification when you make a new Puppet that make you hit the limit so that at that point you can choose to Annex one of your other Puppets, but if you don't do that the next time you conquer a city Raze or Annex will be the only options.

In addition, although you would some additional internal border graphics for that, the territory of a puppet state would count as neutral for military purposes, i.e. you can't upgrade, healing is lower and certain bonusses like Oligarchy don't apply.

 

[Celevin]

Regarding Puppet States, a solution might be to tie them in to the number of cities you already own, so that you can only have 1 Puppet per 1-2 cities you already have. You get a notification when you make a new Puppet that make you hit the limit so that at that point you can choose to Annex one of your other Puppets, but if you don't do that the next time you conquer a city Raze or Annex will be the only options.

Hard caps like that are kinda... icky. There's usually a more elegant solution.

 

[jwallstone]

Mod Implementation of Ahriman's Suggestions

I've written a mod that implements most of Ahriman's suggestions, trying as best as possible to reflect some of the discussions since the original post.

Please give me feedback as to tweaks/suggestions.

1. Block puppet AI from building military structures, forge, or defensive structures.
   --Not yet implemented, still figuring out if it's possible.
   
   
2. Make great scientists produce a fixed number of beakers.
   --Probably not possible until Lua scripting becomes more transparent.
   
   
3. Increase tech beaker costs by era, with later eras increasing by more. Eg: medieval by 10%, renaissance by 20%, industrial by 30%, modern by 40%, future by 50%.
   --Done.
   
   
4. Reduce the strength of the horseman and companion cavalry by 2.
   --As best as I could tell, the consensus was to remove movement points. -1 movement on both.
   
   
5. Increase the defensive improvement of all city defensive structures.
   --Done. Now it goes +7.5, +10, +18.
   
   
6. Change maritime city states.... One way to do this is to have it be a flat % bonus of food yield.
   
   --Not possible without exposing more of the game engine. However, I believe I have a solution. I have changed the Granary - rather than giving a flat +2, it gives +25% total production to a city, clearly making it much better for large cities. To compensate, it now has a high maintenance cost of 6 and costs 160 up from 100. Now it is entirely something to build in a few, large cities to greatly boost their growth rate. I would love feedback on this. These numbers can use tweaking probably.
   
   
7. Reduce the amount of food needed to grow to population sizes over ~14.
   --Frankly, I'm not sure if it's necessary with the Granary change. I had a size 20 city with nothing special go from +2 food (42 - 40 eaten) to +12.5 (+25% of 42 food=+10.5 additional), cutting growth time from 165 turns to 27 turns.
   
   
8. Make all horses produce only 2 copies.
   --Done
   
   
9. Make civil service apply only to farms on open terrain next to rivers/lakes.
   --Not possible to have both the tech and terrain conditional like this in XML.
   
   
10. Increase mine yields +1hammer at dynamite. Increase trading post and plantation yields +1 gold at economics.
    Make farm yield boosts also affect pastures, so that bonus resources are actually decent bonuses.
    
    --Done. +1 to mine at dynamite, +1 to trading post + plantation at economics, +1 to pastures with sheep and cattle (but not horses). This means that sheep now give +2 bonus food with a pasture.
    
    
11. Increase the yield of great person improvements with techs. Eg: Education increase Academy yield, Steel increases Manufactory yield, Acoustics increases Landmark yield, Banking increases customhouse yield.
    
    --Done exactly as suggested. Except Culture behaves differently, and cannot be tech dependent. Only the base number can be changed, so +1 base .
    

Here are the files. Can be opened as a zip file or put in the MODS folder to test.

 

[iop]

@jwallstone: Awesome! I look forward to trying your mod!


@Ahriman:
Here's another possible solution for the maritime city states, which would even be more realistic: A maritime city state can only deliver a limited amount of food to an empire, which could be tied to age. For example Ancient: 10fpt, Classical 15fpt, etc.

Then, the food is distributed evenly to every citizen. For example, if you get 10fpt and you have a city of size 7 and one of size 3, the first city will get 7fpt and the second 3fpt. Thus, a small empire will benefit much more from a city state than a large one, which is good, and newly founded cities won't grow at 1pop/turn early on if you're allied with lots of maritimes. Due to the exponential increase in how much food is needed for growth, two size 10 cities will still benefit a bit more from city states than 1 size 20 city in terms of how much faster they grow.

 

[Tyrael]

My idea: Keep maritimes as they are, but require a city to be size X (5 maybe) and have a granary to get the bonus. This would slow down early cities a little and encourage granaries for growth, which is something I feel like should be encouraged. Historically this could represent getting the needed infrastructure in place for large food shipments to come in. Maybe add a trade route requirement from the city to the city-state as well? Seems odd that they would be able to transport that food in the first place without even a road.

We'd also need to lower the exponent in the equation for food needed to grow. I don't mind a little exponential growth but the current equation is absurd.

 

[terrycrist3]

I wonder if it would help balance city states to require that they be connected to your trade network. That way you have to balance the benefits they give you against the cost of maintaining the roads/harbors to reach them.

 

[Unearthly]

[*] Change maritime city states.... One way to do this is to have it be a flat % bonus of food yield.

--Not possible without exposing more of the game engine. However, I believe I have a solution. I have changed the Granary - rather than giving a flat +2, it gives +25% total production to a city, clearly making it much better for large cities. To compensate, it now has a high maintenance cost of 6 and costs 160 up from 100. Now it is entirely something to build in a few, large cities to greatly boost their growth rate. I would love feedback on this. These numbers can use tweaking probably.

I think this takes a lot away from the Aztec's Floating Gardens. I suppose it's a lot cheaper, but it feels like it's being overshadowed.

 

[jwallstone]

I think this takes a lot away from the Aztec's Floating Gardens. I suppose it's a lot cheaper, but it feels like it's being overshadowed.

Yeah, agreed, but the Aztec building can be tweaked. Having this dynamic be available to everyone would, as Ahriman suggested, provide interesting strategic value.

Also note that the Granary with this change has a very high maintenance cost, making it something that should only built in a few cities. The Aztec Gardens has minimal maintenance, making it useful for a larger # of cities. They provide different strategic uses then.

 

[Ahriman]

I've written a mod that implements most of Ahriman's suggestions, trying as best as possible to reflect some of the discussions since the original post.

This is a nice job, but still isn't able to address some of the most crucial issues, which will require access to the sdk.

Increase tech beaker costs by era, with later eras increasing by more. Eg: medieval by 10%, renaissance by 20%, industrial by 30%, modern by 40%, future by 50%.
--Done.

On reflection, I'm guessing that this will turn out to be far too much. A bit more testing, and up to Renaissance feels ok, so it might be better to do Industrial 15%, Modern 25%, Future 35% and leave the others.

However, I believe I have a solution. I have changed the Granary

An interesting idea, but I think it doesn't really solve the problem. The problem is too much food from maritime city states, not too little food from other sources.
We can't fix this without sdk changes, I'm guessing.
I think providing a flat bonus in food from Maritime city states is probably the way to go, so that with large empires the same total food is spread over many more cities.

--Not possible to have both the tech and terrain conditional like this in XML.

Yeah, probably the only XML-friendly way to do this is to remove the ability to build farms on hill tiles, and create a new improvement "hill farm" that is identical to a normal farm but doesn't get the civil service bonus.

Done exactly as suggested. Except Culture behaves differently, and cannot be tech dependent.

Perhaps the best fix then is to have it get extra science, since it currently gives some of both.
A +1 change probably isn't large enough though to make these ever worth building beyond the early game.

Here's another possible solution for the maritime city states, which would even be more realistic: A maritime city state can only deliver a limited amount of food to an empire, which could be tied to age. For example Ancient: 10fpt, Classical 15fpt, etc.

This kind of thing has been suggested before, and I'm leaning this way. The problem is in making the allocation mechanism transparent to the player, particularly with lots of rounding issues.
Suppose I get +15 food, and I have 6 cities of size 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 4. How does the 15 get allocated? And how can the player easily know this without having to do a tedious calculation?
Another possibility: don't have the bonus applied to puppets.
This could work well with either the current food system or a fixed food supply system.

Another possible fix is just to use the current system but nerf the benefits down.
Ancient/classical era: +2 food to capital.
Medieval: +2 food to capital, +1 food to all cities.
Renaisance: +4 food to capital, +1 food to all cities.
Industrial: +4 food to capital, +2 food to all cities.
Modern: +6 food to capital, +2 food to all cities
Future: +6 food to capital, +3 food to all cities.

 

[Celevin]

I think Roxlimn created the best solution with Maritimes supplying food based on current population. I'm going to expand / refine that. Here's what I propose for city states. Currently, we have Maritimes being overpowered for big empires, and Culturals being overpowered for small empires. So:

1) Each Maritime city state gives each of your cities a food bonus equal to 20% of its population
2) Each Cultural city state gives x culture to your capitol, and .3*x culture (for standard map size, alter depending on map size) to each other city.

Then, for two empires with the same population but spread in two different ways, the city states provide an equal benefit.


I have a huge, really cool idea for Maritime city states, but it involves creating a new menu, new buildings, and a lot of other things. It's a huge fiasco. I was thinking we could have Maritimes just grant x food to a "surplus pool". Then we could also have buildings with maintenance costs that also put 10% of the city's food in this "supply pool" (this is extra food, not food taken from the city). Health resources would also grant +1 food to this "supply pool". Then the player can assign giving a certain percent of this food to their cities in a menu. They can even choose to trade this food to other civs.

This would be a huge undertaking but would be worth it in a mod. It would make trade much more robust, flush out the currently weak health resources like cows and wheat, and is a concept that players have been wanting for a long time. It's also entirely "builder" and diplomacy based, something that a lot of people find lacking in Civ5.

 

[Ahriman]

Each Maritime city state gives each of your cities a food bonus equal to 20% of its population

Hmm. Might work. As long as its accompanied by some kind of change that allows for empires with fewer cities to grow each city faster. [Like the aqueduct mini-hospital proposal.]

Depends on how you round though. Does a size 4 city get 0 or 1? How about a size 6 city, 1 or 2? Size 9?

This would be a huge undertaking but would be worth it in a mod.

Sounds too complex/too much work to me. I'm guessing a small (but non-zero) audience.

flush out the currently weak health resources like cows and wheat

I don't think wheat is a problem. Cows and sheep are a problem only because their yields don't scale with tech.

 

[Celevin]

Hmm. Might work. As long as its accompanied by some kind of change that allows for empires with fewer cities to grow each city faster. [Like the aqueduct mini-hospital proposal.]

Depends on how you round though. Does a size 4 city get 0 or 1? How about a size 6 city, 1 or 2? Size 9?

Keep it as a fraction. Give a size 6 city 1.2 food. Look in the city menu, it already gives out fractioned gold. Why not fraction food as well?

Cultural city states NEED to change as well. Change them, fix puppets, and maybe when I'm gunning for a culture win I won't make it as of 1600 AD with 1 city.


I love the idea of changing hospitals to -25%, and putting in an aqueduct somewhere. Make it so cities require 100% early, then build an aqueduct and go to 75% needed, then a hospital to go to 50% needed, and the final building to go to 25% needed.

 

[Ahriman]

Keep it as a fraction. Give a size 6 city 1.2 food. Look in the city menu, it already gives out fractioned gold. Why not fraction food as well?

Cultural city states NEED to change as well. Change them, fix puppets, and maybe when I'm gunning for a culture win I won't make it as of 1600 AD with 1 city.


I love the idea of changing hospitals to -25%, and putting in an aqueduct somewhere. Make it so cities require 100% early, then build an aqueduct and go to 75% needed, then a hospital to go to 50% needed, and the final building to go to 25% needed.

Wrote a post, accidentally hit "Back in browser", lost it.

Summary version:
Fractions seems ok, though food is slightly different than gold because gold is accumulated at an empire level not a city level.

Food per pop is ok, but I think I prefer food as % yield. Does mostly the same thing, but the latter means that Maritime CS are a complement to high food yield rather than a substitute. As long as you can substitute for food, then grassland remains underpowered relative to plains, farm tiles are weak, and granary/waterwheel are weak. Also, should waterwheel give 3 food? It seems underpowered as is.

Not convinced yet that cultural city states are OP. I haven't tried a OCC yet, but it seems like you'd be way behind on population (and thus science) and army, and would have difficulty getting the gold to get many city states, and would be easy prey for a big army superior tech enemy.

If you're getting the science/gold from puppets, then the solution seems like its a puppet problem. Still think the best puppet fix is a flat yield penalty, and maybe a 5-10% increase in social policy cost (but less than the 30% for real cities).

I like the aqueduct idea, at Engineering tech.
Helps fix one of the core problem; the idea is supposed to be that you can either use your happiness on a few big cities or many small cities, but it doesn't really work out that way because of the difficulty in getting few cities to grow faster enough.

 

[Seek]

A thought for improving GP tile bonuses: change them from tile improvements to features so you can retain (or change) the improvements of the tile. You would create "super tiles" like a minted gold mine with customs house for 3h10gpt. I think this would go a long way to making them viable. (Not sure how well this would work graphically or aesthetically, but...)
Anyway, great ideas in this thread, thanks Ahriman!