AI Faith bonus in CBP ?

[Horvath Broncos]

As of last few patches getting religion has gotten way harder. Before I was getting first religion on immortal pretty regularly but nowdays I miss on religion about half the time. Even when I have pretty good faith gain early on or even sometimes when I get the Stone Henge. This could explain it.

 

[Funak]

5 Characters

 

[Moi Magnus]

Been thinking a bit about this, along with the whine about luck with ancient ruins snowballing games and I think I've found a solution.

It is mostly the first policy and the culture gained from it which does the snowballing, so how about we rebalance the policy-costs in a way so all civs get a free policy when they found their capital?

This allows the AI to start with a bunch of extra culture, the way they do now and not have as big of a policy-advantage. They are still going to be ahead, but they aren't going to snowball it quite as much.

It also lowers the snowballing factor from culture-ruins, culture-luxuries and just civspecific bonus culture.

It also allows better balance of the three starting-policytrees. As most people have noticed, the nature of Progress for example makes the tree a whole lot stronger the earlier you adopt it. It also opens up more tree-specific buildorders and slightly lowers the value of the first one or two scouts. An authority start could for example go for an extra warrior instead of the first scout and go clear camps right off the bat.


Naturally the free policy wouldn't be a free policy (in the sense of Oracle or Poland UA) but the policycosts of the other 4 first policies would get adjusted to make the price catch up by the time you've reached your fifth policy (one policy-tree).

I agree that the first policy is far too powerfull, because it gives to the player its main source of culture. Giving one free policy at the start of the game would be a solution.
Maybe we should open a new topic on General Balance ?

 

[Funak]

I agree that the first policy is far too powerfull, because it gives to the player its main source of culture. Giving one free policy at the start of the game would be a solution.
Maybe we should open a new topic on General Balance ?

Yeah, but is this a balance issue?

 

[tompliss]

I don't like having to choose a policy at the start of the game.
When you play a civ that doesn't have a "preferred" first policy tree, you could easily end with a choice that doesn't fit your situation (you chose tradition but you're alone on an island with enough tiles to make 10 nice cities, or you chose progress but there are 3 capitals within 15 tiles of you).
I like the fact that, even by building a monument on turn 1, you still have time to explore a bit before the first policy.

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah, but is this a balance issue?

Easier solution is to lower the amount of culture from that hut.

 

[Funak]

Easier solution is to lower the amount of culture from that hut.

This honestly wouldn't change anything, but whatever I just don't care anymore.

 

[Gazebo]

This honestly wouldn't change anything, but whatever I just don't care anymore.

How now? If the issue is, as you state,

...the snowballing factor from culture-ruins, culture-luxuries and just civspecific bonus culture.

we can easily remove 1/3 of that by reducing goody hut culture.

Seems simple enough to me.

G

 

[tompliss]

How now? If the issue is, as you state

Yeah, no, the issue about policies in "high" difficulties (at least from emperor) was that the AI gets a free policy in the 0-2 first turns (supposedly when they settle their first city).
"Moi Magnus" proposed to give this bonus to the player too, but I think it's a bad idea.

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah, no, the issue about policies in "high" difficulties (at least from emperor) was that the AI gets a free policy in the 0-2 first turns (supposedly when they settle their first city).
"Moi Magnus" proposed to give this bonus to the player too, but I think it's a bad idea.

They do, yep. It is a consequence of handicap bonuses. Keep in mind that they no longer start w/ a free tech, however, thus other bonuses were introduced to make higher difficulty handicaps a bit trickier to overcome.

 

[matlajs]

gazebo,honestly. where do you think all those disscounts, free policy etc etc lead? i tell you. to free techs. not from start, but result is same maybe worse. i dont complain about that, but those bonuses you made compared to vanilla are not diferent, just more complicated. what is diferent in ,,they have some free techs at start, but no disscounts'' from they have no free techs but those disscouts leads to much more free science than those starting techs

 

[tompliss]

matlajs, I'd prefer a difficulty where the AI get a +40% bonus to everything they do (food, prod, culture, science, faith, happiness, army size limit), rather than bonus at the start for a simple reason : I don't want to feel like I have to catch up with them.
The AI doesn't make decisions as well optimized as the players, so they need something to make up for this (and that's why they get bonus when they reach a new era, for example).

 

[matlajs]

i agree wtih this, but still i feel the same you said between medieval-renaisance era. have to catch up. honestly i dont know what i did in settings. but i had recently 2-3 very nice games. crowded world,much more wars, keeping them(or some of them) focus on something else than just settling,science,culture, more settling ,wonders building etc. I played with 13 Ais(14 with me) and i enjoyed it. but about 1/4 of Ai suffered rly lot by those early-non stop wars. So i decreased it from 13 to 12. And now it is back from ,,crowded'' to hurray bunch of place for everyone and game remind me 8/18 version. Rly duno what is that map generator doing, but Ai is peacefull rusher again.

 

[Gazebo]

gazebo,honestly. where do you think all those disscounts, free policy etc etc lead? i tell you. to free techs. not from start, but result is same maybe worse. i dont complain about that, but those bonuses you made compared to vanilla are not diferent, just more complicated. what is diferent in ,,they have some free techs at start, but no disscounts'' from they have no free techs but those disscouts leads to much more free science than those starting techs

You are misinformed. There's a huge difference between one big bonus on Turn 0 and smaller bonuses sprinkled throughout the game based on AI actions.

G

 

[Strigvir]

Progress opener on turn 1-2 does lead to free techs basically. Even when going Progress myself I feel the big difference between scoring a culture ruin/starting near a culture luxury and not having either of those.

 

[superunicornfan]

On king difficulty, AI get 20 bonus food, hammers, and gold (at least) on turn 1. This results in the AI growing to pop 2 on turn 2, getting their first building faster (usually a shrine, meaning most AIs have a pantheon before the player), and a small gold bonus. The food and gold bonuses I can live with, but the pantheon race feels futile.

Is this intentional? How do I remove this bonus? I've looked through difficultymod.xml and couldn't find anything that looked relevant. I remember the AI used to get bonus culture, but that was removed since it basically meant a free social policy. This seems like a similar situation.

Edit: accidentally bumped an old thread. apologies.