Txurce
Deity
I agree that puppets should be nerfed first, but it didn't seem to be enough. However...
If you made this change it should help a lot without screwing up the boosts for active play.
Another thread about capturing cities..
- Thread starter EsoEs
- Start date
I agree that puppets should be nerfed first, but it didn't seem to be enough. However...
If you made this change it should help a lot without screwing up the boosts for active play.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3,410
This is a great point, and thinking about it I can't definitively answer it either: If we change the puppet prioritization to default, the general -25% on yields would be much more balanced, but there's no saying what the puppet will build - and it could just become a money or happiness pit without much reward given the puppet's terrain - if there's a lot of production but low food/population, say, or a lot of food but little production - but these are probably outlier examples. The plus-side of making this change is that the puppet will build more science and culture buildings, therefore benefiting the empire in a more balanced way, which I admit would be great.
Otoh, I think the gold focus is really quite brilliant, because it guarantees 1) the puppet's build order will be fairly predictable, 2) the benefit will always be useful, 3) growth will be curtailed (but generally not halted because of the gold on rivers) and 4) any maintenance costs incurred by it's buildings will be mitigated and thus won't be seen as a drain. However, a bit less gold in VEM is desirable, so I think I'd still prefer leaving them on gold focus with a culture, science, and (increased) gold penalty for gameplay reasons, and one could argue that the gold penalty is the general maintenance costs for keeping the puppet - but trying out the other route in a beta would certainly be worthwhile.
Atlas627
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2011
- Messages
- 2,930
I think Puppet Cities should not be the same as normal cities beyond just not being able to control them. As you said, the gold focus is quite brilliant for all of those reasons. Other reasons include: 1) You can build villages anywhere, allowing you to somewhat control what tiles are worked, 2) gold accumulates empire-wide, so your puppet city never really improves itself, but instead improves your empire in an indirect and less efficient fashion (as opposed to production), and 3) gold can be used easily on any resource but isn't as powerful as giving direct science or culture.
I think yields are too high in VEM in general, but gold especially. I don't play conquest games often, so I doubt puppets are the problem because I still have high gold yields. I don't think a gold nerf is necessary, and I think the gold focus should stay.
Txurce
Deity
This would take us back to a place where puppeting as many cities as possible would be a good thing. That's why VEM changed the puppeting mechanics to make them a transitional stage.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Another thought on puppet gold; is it possible to have the puppet dummy building reduce trade route income? That is half of the reason why puppets are so lucrative.
Atlas627
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2011
- Messages
- 2,930
How so? I said there should be a difference beyond just lack of control...such as having the gold focus. So if you want more cities for production to build more units instead of buying, or you want more cities for science, or culture, then you should annex. How is this back to vanilla? I am saying it should go back to what it was like .2 versions ago.
Txurce
Deity
What you're saying now is clear and - what's more - so is what you wrote before. I misread that post.
Atlas627
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2011
- Messages
- 2,930
Awesome lol
On another note, I just confirmed for myself today that you can have your only city (capital) be a puppet. I don't know if the game would've selected a puppet for the capital if other cities were available, however.
EDIT: I re-read my original post now (at 2am, no less) and misread it myself. When re-reading it, it looks like I used a double negative (should not be the same beyond not being able to control) without actually using a double negative, making my sentence confusing. The newer sentence is much clearer (should be a difference beyond lack of control. Sorry for the confusion!
Txurce
Deity
EDIT: I re-read my original post now (at 2am, no less) and misread it myself. When re-reading it, it looks like I used a double negative (should not be the same beyond not being able to control) without actually using a double negative, making my sentence confusing. The newer sentence is much clearer (should be a difference beyond lack of control. Sorry for the confusion!
That was the one that threw me off!
Dunkah
Emperor
What about making Puppetted Cities prone to revolts? Perhaps even more of a chance if there is no garrison? It's a potential Nerf, could be annoying...
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Something to point out is we can alter the priorities of puppets independently from the overall "focus" of the city. For example, half a year ago I gave puppets a -10 flavor towards science to discourage them from producing science buildings. The city "focus" mainly affects the allocation of citizens to work tiles.
Gross yields or net yields (profits)? The other side of the coin from income is expense. We can alter the purchase and maintenance costs of units and buildings, so it's worthwhile to consider if one of those is out of balance.
As Ahriman pointed out,
domestic trade is also a significant factor. It rewards us for simply having cities, developed or not, in any form. I generally prefer things which reward development. The domestic trade formula is available to us, so it should be feasible to calculate the income of a particular city and modify it through lua. It won't be easy without access to the game core but should be possible.
@Dunkah
Civ 4 style city revolts are similar to stuns in other games like RPGs, taking control away from the player. I'm of the opinion systems like that generally aren't too fun for the player, a position I've seen expressed by several developers at Blizzard as well, so I'd prefer to avoid "stuns."
Gross yields or net yields (profits)? The other side of the coin from income is expense. We can alter the purchase and maintenance costs of units and buildings, so it's worthwhile to consider if one of those is out of balance.
As Ahriman pointed out,
domestic trade is also a significant factor. It rewards us for simply having cities, developed or not, in any form. I generally prefer things which reward development. The domestic trade formula is available to us, so it should be feasible to calculate the income of a particular city and modify it through lua. It won't be easy without access to the game core but should be possible.@Dunkah
Civ 4 style city revolts are similar to stuns in other games like RPGs, taking control away from the player. I'm of the opinion systems like that generally aren't too fun for the player, a position I've seen expressed by several developers at Blizzard as well, so I'd prefer to avoid "stuns."
Ahriman
Tyrant
Agree with this completely. It would be great if we could reduce the domestic trade yield from puppets; I'd argue that puppet domestic trade yield should probably be around half that of a regular city. The nice thing about the trade yield bonus is that it doesn't affect the gains from development, and that it encourages you to annex the large cities, where the gold from trade will be larger.
I'd consider toning down the science flavor reduction, and I'd consider reducing them to 2 unhappiness per city (not just 3) given that you've changed them back to 1 per pop. I think it is important for puppets to have some kind of real advantage over annexation; it should not be the case that puppets are absolutely worse at everything than normal cities, it should be the case that for a minor, unproductive city, you'd prefer to leave it as a puppet, and the main benefit would be from terrain control.
Agreed, I don't see much fun here.
Atlas627
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2011
- Messages
- 2,930
I don't know where the problem lies, and fixing it by changing some other parameter is certainly possible. The only reason I poked into this thread (I don't usually play conquest of any sort, so I really don't know much) was to point out that I still have high gold yields without using puppets, so even though there may also be a problem with puppets, there is definitely problems with gold yields overall. I suggest trying to fix that before altering puppets, as perhaps it is just the same problem causing both symptoms.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think it is appropriate that big/wide empires generate lots of gold. Thats the only thing they're really good at.
Atlas627
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2011
- Messages
- 2,930
I almost always go tall. And I still think yields are too high. But apparently its just me, which is understandable.
Txurce
Deity
I always go tall if not playing for Conquest, and have been saying for a while that there's too much gold. In my current game, for example, I'm buying 5 RA's as they become available... and have been most of the game.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Do you run out of things to build?
Txurce
Deity
No, but I didn't say I'm drowning in gold. For example, around T150 in an Emperor game, I have RA's with all 5 civs I've met and 2 allies and a friend. On the other hand, I'm building everything - not buying. That seems appropriate at this stage of the game. But I was in a similar place - lots of RA's and one alliance - from very early on. This seems a little high to me, especially since I have yet to work one Village. It may not be, and I wouldn't view gold in tall games as something worth focusing on at this time.
However, my main issue with gold has been as a subset of how comfortable Conquest is. Even there, I try to temper my criticism by acknowledging that conquest is a lot of fun, as opposed to boring because it's too easy. (Ironically, it was too easy only once - in GotVEM 2.)
Midway through this game, I want to reiterate that the Ai seems to be expanding well and researching well, and the game overall is really a pleasure. I'm torn between playing at a somewhat challenging Emperor or a seriously challenging Immortal. But again, even Immortal feels balanced in terms of strategic choice.
KidJustKid
Chieftain
Prince and 3/4 city core, wide teching, yes, very much so and to the point where maintenence is starting to damage my economy badly. A game I'm currently is Pachacuti on Continents Plus with Catherine, Kammy and Liz on my continent and a hill/desert start. Liz starts a warrior rush on my 3rd city as it gets planted so in return I spit out 3 swordsmen and take her out the game. The same 3 swords cap most of Polynesia. I've now annexed and courthoused both London and Honolulu, running at 20+ happy with only 3 policies in Piety. Now with so many barracks/smithies etc, I've fallen behind the two other runaways, Russia and Persia, in production and overall gold and while I have the biggest army, it's stumped by Russia's Great Wall. I'm starting to reach the phase where turtling to a science win is a lot easier than actually playing the game.
About mid game balance, for me, it sounds like similarly to Txure, I stick to a small core and puppet as I conquer. While I agree it's fun, that just leaves me rich and running away with the game where I end up building stables because the 1 maintenance is lower than 4 for a longsword, and in those cases, yes, I run out of buildings even without purchasing anything. Otherwise I run into someone who's built the Great Wall and ragequit.
