[GS] Are Mountains OP?

[steveg700]

You gotta consider that most flat land starts have +0 or +1 campuses. +3 is still good.

Indeed. Some have the fun of getting a huge mountain bonus, while others scrape by as best they can.

 

[acluewithout]

You gotta consider that most flat land starts have +0 or +1 campuses. +3 is still good.

Indeed. Some have the fun of getting a huge mountain bonus, while others scrape by as best they can.

I do really like how the map currently makes land masses feel more logical and also just more interesting. The clusters of craggy mountains and large plains look stunning and make the map much more interesting tactically.

I also think the current adjacency rules do push you towards more distinct Cities and empires. Spawn next to a big mountain network, and my empire goes quite hidden kingdom full of campuses and holy sites and choke points. Spawn on flat plains, and I have huge pop cities, lots of diplomacy and or military (so the AI doesn’t smash me) and eventually IZs and dams etc. I think the difference between Mountain Campuses and Jungle Campuses is part of that, which part of why I like the current adjacencies.

Ultimately, I think mountains are always going to be powerful in Civ 6. I don’t really think mountains (or their adjacencies) need to be tweaked. I think it’s more Campuses (how many you can have, when you get them), Population (specifically, what does Population give you) and Rationalism (needs to be totally reworked) that are the areas that need serious tweaking.

Sigh. If only FXS we working on a patch and or a third expansion where they could tackle some of this stuff...

 

[steveg700]

I also think the current adjacency rules do push you towards more distinct Cities and empires. Spawn next to a big mountain network, and my empire goes quite hidden kingdom full of campuses and holy sites and choke points. Spawn on flat plains, and I have huge pop cities, lots of diplomacy and or military (so the AI doesn’t smash me) and eventually IZs and dams etc. I think the difference between Mountain Campuses and Jungle Campuses is part of that, which part of why I like the current adjacencies.

All it seems you're doing here is repeating that you revel in imbalance. That civ on flat plains is not operating on a remotely even basis. The fact that it has to focus on survival is not an advantage over the civ that gets to turtle in the mountains. In threads like this and the raging barbarians thread, you want to push that imbalance is fine and should be maintained because you enjoy getting lemons as much as cherries.

I do really like how the map currently makes land masses feel more logical and also just more interesting. The clusters of craggy mountains and large plains look stunning and make the map much more interesting tactically.

It's interesting tactically if there's give-and-take, if the plains civ gets some strength that can be leveraged in lieu of the mountain bonuses. As it is, what you seem to be advocating is a kind of masochistic thrill dealt by lopsided bonus distribution.

 

[lotrmith]

Food for thought: Would campuses be better off with minor (0.5) adjacency from mountains, but added yields from buildings? Perhaps if a library gained additional science for each great work of writing in a city (Babylon could double this), and a university for each mountain tile or reef adjacent? This would add further value to Rationalism (while making city planning more important to ensure the +3) and less value to natural philosophy.

 

[acluewithout]

All it seems you're doing here is repeating that you revel in imbalance. That civ on flat plains is not operating on a remotely even basis. The fact that it has to focus on survival is not an advantage over the civ that gets to turtle in the mountains. In threads like this and the raging barbarians thread, you want to push that imbalance is fine and should be maintained because you enjoy getting lemons as much as cherries.



It's interesting tactically if there's give-and-take, if the plains civ gets some strength that can be leveraged in lieu of the mountain bonuses. As it is, what you seem to be advocating is a kind of masochistic thrill dealt by lopsided bonus distribution.

Some of this is subjective, obviously. But I don’t think the game needs to be completely balanced, i.e. it’s okay for some starts to be stronger than others. But it’s also a matter of degree. I think the power of Mountains over Flat Land is basically okay - but is a little wonky less because of Mountains and or Campus adjacencies and more because of other mechanics.

I think this is where it’s got a little messy, because my comments on this thread have got a little muddled. My original post was really about pointing out what a huge impact Mountains have on how your game plays. It was really just an observation rather than a complaint or call to action.

We’ve then got into a discussions about population being undervalued, Science being too easy to get, and what’s wrong with Rationalism. Which unintentionally circles back to Mountains, because Mountains = Campus Adjacency.

Perhaps this post even further muddles that, but hopefully not.

So, basically my view point is this. I think: Mountain starts are strong, but that’s mostly okay; Science adjacencies are in a good place in terms of the “puzzle” of where best to place Camouses, with their mixture of +1 and +0.5 bonuses and slight clash with Holy Sites that also want Mountains; however, Science in general needs to be harder to get overall (reduce Science from City States, soft cap number of Campuses and or push back Campuses), Rationalism needs a complete re-work, and Population / Farms / Flatland needs some sort of buff (but ideally not a buff that just creates more city spam or high pop in every city).

If you want more concrete suggestions on Science you can look here. If you want my views on making Population or Farms more valuable, you can look here and sort of here (on that last link, one thought I had was that if we had additional governors that unlock mid or late game, some of them could be focused on buffing Pop a bit like Reyna and Pingala do).

 

[steveg700]

Some of this is subjective, obviously. But I don’t think the game needs to be completely balanced, i.e. it’s okay for some starts to be stronger than others.

Yes, the map deals you a hand and a civ needs to be able to play the hand it's dealt. But that means there should be more tricks in the playbook. The recent additions of the geothermal fissures and reef bonuses is sort of an admission to that.

What might help if there were sources of culture bonuses on the map that specifically don't appear near mountains. That would provide a dichotomy between the two tree progressions.

 

[kaspergm]

Clearly we are treading a water here with no right or wrong, but just a question of taste. Just a few thoughts I'd like to chime in with:

• One reason I think mountain campus bonus is too high is that mountains often come in chains and mountains is not a feature that can be removed for benefit. Thus, it seems strange that you get a full +1 adjacency from mountains, where you can frequently have 3 or 4 adjacent tiles, sometimes even more - whereas you only get +0.5 from jungles, which often come in lower numbers and where you will be left with the dilemma of chopping the jungle for instant yields. Logically, one would think the bonuses should be the other way around.
• The addition of reef and geothermal fissure bonus was a step in the right direction to branch things out, but since geothermal fissure very often appear in conjunction with mountains, in some ways, they've only made things worse.
• The idea of the game was that you should "play the map" and thus adjust your game style to what was offered you. But as pointed out by others also, if you get a flat plains start, there's really no alternative path to pursue. If there were different types of terrain that gave bonus to theatre squares, this might have been a viable approach, but theatre squares are notoriously hard to get adjacency bonus for. To prove this point, the idea that you should be able to take a culture-focused start and then use Great Library to catch up in science (as it was first promoted) is so ridiculous that it effectively highlights this problem.
• Apart from faith, which has a pretty poor conversion rate into science or production until much later, there's no yield in the early game that can provide adjacency bonuses that comes even remotely close to those that the campus can get, and the campus can get this bonus right from the beginning. Like I said, culture bonuses only comes from massive and risky investments in wonders, gold bonuses (apart from the flat +2 from rivers) require a harbor district - which sort of kills the point of the investment, because they two districts overlap, a pet peeve of mine of its own - and production bonuses require investment in many other districts, some of which only unlock much later. This clearly points to a symmetry issue with the campus district imo.

 

[acluewithout]

— snip —

Call good points.

A few additional thoughts.

• You’re right about mountains not being removable and Mountain chains. I guess in principle Mountains are balanced by also wanting to put Holy Sites next to Mountains and or increased risk of volcanoes, but the problem is Campuses are way more valuable than HS, Mountain chains having room for both and volcanoes being trivial.
• Flat land is not quite as bad a people make out, provided you have jungles, because you can chop very effectively. You can also get a lot of science from Pingala with high pop (you know... if you last that long out in the open...).
• Open land and rivers are great for IZs, but unlocking and building the infrastructure takes forever - aqueducts are down the bottom of the tech tree, and some of the Eurekas require some luck and building lots of other random stuff, dams are up the top and quite far down and you need all the naval / coastal Eurekas, and IZs are down the middle. Phew! And if it’s really open land, you’re building it all with the minimal hammers!

 

[King of Prussia]

I personally like the idea of nerfing the adjacency of mountains for campuses and boosting it later via tech/buildings. I wouldn't mind if they did that for other districts too.