I only play huge maps, so there might be a few more ruins than normally. Under such conditions I find map reveal followed by unit upgrade the strongest. The first one gives your pathfinder 3-4 levels immediately from revealing tiles. It allows to take trailblazer I+II followed by sight I+II really early, giving huge speed advantage and increasing exp gain/probability of finding more ruins exponentially. I follow that with +1 movement and then Survivalist I+II+III as fast as possible. If you upgrade to Scout, you get +1 more sight, again speeding things up. Then with auto-heal every turn (survivalist 3) it can clean camps on its own and tank cities without walls (useful with archer rushes). The second tier of huts are production(especially for getting this first monument out faster)/faith/tech. Tier 3 gold/culture (very little culture usually) and pop/land which are pretty situational. Bottom tier - unit experience.
Ancient Ruins Balance - which reward is the strongest?
- Thread starter JamesNinelives
- Start date
A thing I find interesting is that people claim you get so little culture from the hut, not sure now regarding what it is on all levels but deity-epic gives (about) 22 culture most of the time. At a time you are usually gaining 1 or 2 culture per turn most of the time, unless something magically happened and you spawned right next to a natural wonder or have some kind of special civ things. So it's anywhere from 22 to 11 turns worth of culture, or about 1/3 of the way to a policy. While the tech is a free tech it's turn is not far, or that far from it, a tech at the time is usually something around 15 turns worth of research. So I'm not sure it should be changed to like give you an entire free policy or anything like that.
JamesNinelives
Emperor
Thanks for your input everyone! I've created another poll now to get more nuanced information: which if any of the rewards would you like to see changed or adjusted?
Tekamthi
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2016
- Messages
- 1,661
in the typical game i play, 43 civ deity, faith is pretty much useless, as the AI will always out-faith me to the 7 max religions anyway. that'd be my vote for weakest unless this limit is removed (should allow maybe 10-12 religion on 43-civ)
For strongest, getting a 2nd column tech is the most powerful imo, though it happens pretty rarely.
For strongest, getting a 2nd column tech is the most powerful imo, though it happens pretty rarely.
Vaya
Warlord
Well guess what happens If you play game with bar set to found pantheons higher. For example 480 on epic. I play slow games where resources are gradually revealed later and therefore I want panthons/religions later too(approximately turn 100/200). I did not expect this though 
Vaya
Warlord
Well after pantheon faith amount is obviously configurable. Not before pantheon though. Also if certain reward(tech, faith..) is disabled ruins can still roll it. They just wont provide any benefit.
Spoiler code :
SolutionIt
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2020
- Messages
- 125
My list goes like this:
1. Faith after you found a pantheon. Super unbalanced. Too much faith. Get lucky enough with a few ruins and you can get a religion way earlier than intended.
2. Science. Busted and doesn't help speed up the tech you want to actually research. Also very annoying to get when it auto researches a tech you're about to finish.
3. Faith before a pantheon. Instant Pantheon is busted. Though I don't know why but I've effectively stopped getting them as of the 12/1 update.
4. Map reveal as a exploration unit. Makes it so much easier to rob ruins from other civs and at the very start of the game is the most broken reward imo. Kind of Balanced.
5. Population. (Faster you hit 4 pop the quicker you can produce a settler, more workable tiles) Balanced
6. Land Expand. Balanced
7. Production. Balanced
8. Culture. Balanced
9. Gold. Balanced as the amount is very variable.
10. Unit Upgrade. Much better on a pathfinder since you remove the risk of losing it to barbarians. Balanced
11. Golden Age Points. Even with it preventing it before 30 turns pass this can really screw over some civs later on to benefit from golden ages properly among all the other issues it presents. Too weak
12. Unit EXP. This legitimately should either be removed or be universal. Too weak
Some ideas for ruins rewards:
- Free worker but it has prisoner of war promotion. Prevents it from being too strong early on.
- Reveal some resources in your vicinity that are locked behind a tech. Obviously not Uranium or Coal. It allows you to slightly beef up tile yields and give you a better idea of where to send the next Settler.
- Increase the influence of the nearest city-state. I don't know what the explanation would be though.
- Reveal nearby barbarian encampments and ruins. Replace this with the current map reveal in such a way it reduces the free exp given to the pathfinder or just doesn't give it at all, but in exchange you know what areas to avoid and what ruins to grab more effectively.
- Free luxury resource in a similar manner to what expending a Great Admiral does.
- Unique promotion similar in function to Treasure Hunter for non-recon units. +1 movement and improved ruins rewards for a warrior wouldn't be too strong I think.
1. Faith after you found a pantheon. Super unbalanced. Too much faith. Get lucky enough with a few ruins and you can get a religion way earlier than intended.
2. Science. Busted and doesn't help speed up the tech you want to actually research. Also very annoying to get when it auto researches a tech you're about to finish.
3. Faith before a pantheon. Instant Pantheon is busted. Though I don't know why but I've effectively stopped getting them as of the 12/1 update.
4. Map reveal as a exploration unit. Makes it so much easier to rob ruins from other civs and at the very start of the game is the most broken reward imo. Kind of Balanced.
5. Population. (Faster you hit 4 pop the quicker you can produce a settler, more workable tiles) Balanced
6. Land Expand. Balanced
7. Production. Balanced
8. Culture. Balanced
9. Gold. Balanced as the amount is very variable.
10. Unit Upgrade. Much better on a pathfinder since you remove the risk of losing it to barbarians. Balanced
11. Golden Age Points. Even with it preventing it before 30 turns pass this can really screw over some civs later on to benefit from golden ages properly among all the other issues it presents. Too weak
12. Unit EXP. This legitimately should either be removed or be universal. Too weak
Some ideas for ruins rewards:
- Free worker but it has prisoner of war promotion. Prevents it from being too strong early on.
- Reveal some resources in your vicinity that are locked behind a tech. Obviously not Uranium or Coal. It allows you to slightly beef up tile yields and give you a better idea of where to send the next Settler.
- Increase the influence of the nearest city-state. I don't know what the explanation would be though.
- Reveal nearby barbarian encampments and ruins. Replace this with the current map reveal in such a way it reduces the free exp given to the pathfinder or just doesn't give it at all, but in exchange you know what areas to avoid and what ruins to grab more effectively.
- Free luxury resource in a similar manner to what expending a Great Admiral does.
- Unique promotion similar in function to Treasure Hunter for non-recon units. +1 movement and improved ruins rewards for a warrior wouldn't be too strong I think.
youngsteve
Prince
Ancient Ruins unbalance the game, particulalry on the harder levels when an AI has the biggest advantages, & the player has most to gain by picking up ruins. Only need to look at Milae recent start as China on youtube to see how ridiclous & unbalanced it is. The player will always hone in on ruins to get them why the AI just aimlessly moves around. Seems bizarre to me why people play the hardest level then use advantages such as ruins to make it easier.
I didn't vote. I think they are great as is for the most part. Deity player here. Culture is the weakest IMO.
Faith appears to be broken for me. Never shows up anymore. I have had issues with Vox starting in Dec. It now gives training to units rather than faith. Is this intended or is it a bug with my install?
Heinz_Guderian
Prince
The best one to get as your first is obviously map reveal, followed by upgrade to scout. If you get those two as your first ruins you will get many more ARs.
Unit exp and Golden age points are absolutely useless and should be removed. They give you nothing or might even be negative for you as you might hit a golden age so early that you cant really benefit from it. Just remove GAP and add some promotions instead of exp as some suggested.
The faith after Pantheon really needs to be adressed. It just influences the game too much, and might give someone a religion out of nowhere really.
Other than that I think they are fine. The culture one should maybe give slightly more than it currently does, but I would really hate if the tech was changed to flat science. I like the randomness of it, and that it is more unique than all the other flat yields.
Unit exp and Golden age points are absolutely useless and should be removed. They give you nothing or might even be negative for you as you might hit a golden age so early that you cant really benefit from it. Just remove GAP and add some promotions instead of exp as some suggested.
The faith after Pantheon really needs to be adressed. It just influences the game too much, and might give someone a religion out of nowhere really.
Other than that I think they are fine. The culture one should maybe give slightly more than it currently does, but I would really hate if the tech was changed to flat science. I like the randomness of it, and that it is more unique than all the other flat yields.
Can the Science reward just be changed to adding a set amount of Science points instead of a free tech? Free tech is far too strong and variable at times.
Same for Faith.
The raw numbers for Production, Gold, Culture, Science, and Faith could be equivalent to some scalable percentage if they need adjusting (based on difficulty, game speed, era, etc.) (i.e. for Science/Culture/Faith could be worth something like 10% of the cost of the next Tech/Policy/Pantheon, gold and production could perhaps be a set, but scalable, amount)
Same for Faith.
The raw numbers for Production, Gold, Culture, Science, and Faith could be equivalent to some scalable percentage if they need adjusting (based on difficulty, game speed, era, etc.) (i.e. for Science/Culture/Faith could be worth something like 10% of the cost of the next Tech/Policy/Pantheon, gold and production could perhaps be a set, but scalable, amount)
