Balance patch discussion and goals

[Lenox1993]

Oh.My bad.I automatically assumed its a religious belief.
Actually it says SET DoubleBorderGA = '1'
Edit: It probably means that it enables function that multiplies incoming points by 2

 

[Lenox1993]

The more I look at that code the more I think that I don't understand it.

 

[Navanod]

I just tested the GoE again on 10-12 and it is different from the last time I tested it on 9-19 (could be 9-12, I am not 100% sure). This time, it is a flat 25% reduction in the cost. No sudden culture out of thin air.

Back then, this happened:

During the test, I saw a one time boost in culture points to the border growth counter whenever about 60-70% of it had been filled. The amount of culture added would be roughly the amount needed to reduce the cost required by about 25%.

This is only not true for the turn I acquired GoE. I had 13/45 culture and 6 turns away from border growth just before choosing the Pantheon. Immediately after picking GoE (without ending turn), I saw the culture counter in my capital jumped to 48/45, a 35 points increase on the spot. That is a staggering 75% of the cost and I'm puzzled.

I don't think it is productive to roll back to 9-19 just to look into this though, so let's consider GoE the same as other bonuses for all intents and purposes from this point on.
Another strange thing is why the cost back then was 45 for the 2nd tile when it is now 50? Some balance tweaks must have taken place.

Oh.My bad.I automatically assumed its a religious belief.
Actually it says SET DoubleBorderGA = '1'
Edit: It probably means that it enables function that multiplies incoming points by 2

Wow! So this is actually working as what the rest are saying. It is based off of actual city culture generation and independent of all other bonuses. Since this would be a true 50% reduction in turns regardless of all other factors and hence scales very nicely into late games, it may be one of the most powerful of the border growth bonuses, beaten only by Tradition's because it only works during GA and WLTKD.

 

[Lenox1993]

Another strange thing is why the cost back then was 45 for the 2nd tile when it is now 50? Some balance tweaks must have taken place.

I think 45 comes from the existence of a Monument in that city. I was testing the raw numbers(no monument), thus 50.
Still strange though, you can't get 45 now without Tradition policy.
Edit: Was this with Tradition policy?

 

[Navanod]

Wouldn't monument also decrease 50>40 since it is 25%?
GoE also dropped it to 40 just a minute ago using the erroneous 20% due to rounding.

At least now I have an idea why my recent border growth was never as explosive as before. I had skipped Tradition in favor of Progress, thinking that the Mongol's Ger would make up for that loss.
I do recall having Tradition when I was playing as Ethiopia and growth was super explosive during GA with Divine Right thrown in. My capital had -6000 (negative!) turns for next border growth!

Am pretty sure it messes with the ^1.1 and would stack at full power without diminishing returns with other bonuses since it kicks in earlier in the calculation. In fact, it would diminish the powers of the other cost reduction bonuses!

 

[Navanod]

Edit: Was this with Tradition policy?

I can't load that save now but I'm quite sure it is not Tradition. It is way too early for me to have unlocked Sovereignty, since that would be my 6th policy to take in my old strategy.

 

[Lenox1993]

Actually on 50 Monument makes it 35.

 

[Lenox1993]

Sooo.... I don't know how you get 45

 

[Navanod]

Actually on 50 Monument makes it 35.

Oops, you're right. Doesn't explain the 45 though.
Hmmm. I can probably test the stacking effects now that I know the GoE is actually 20%! That'll have to wait for tonight though.

 

[Navanod]

Sooo.... I don't know how you get 45

My best guess is something changed between the VP versions. Or it may be the 3rd tile and I have Stele built? Doesn't really matter anymore

 

[Lenox1993]

My best guess is something changed between the VP versions. Or it may be the 3rd tile and I have Stele built? Doesn't really matter anymore

Yes.Probably that.
Edit: No. 3rd tile+Stelle would make it 65.

 

[Gazebo]

Apologies, it is "Divine Right" without the "s".
It's a VP Piety policy

Border growth is doubled in cities during Golden Ages and We Love the King Day. Temples generate +1 happiness.

It runs the function twice - that's how it works. So rather than halving the value for the next plot (which would be weird to temporarily halve), it simply doubles the rate.

 

[Navanod]

It runs the function twice - that's how it works. So rather than halving the value for the next plot (which would be weird to temporarily halve), it simply doubles the rate.

Thanks for that confirmation. By the way, please let me know if I am cluttering up this thread with this topic and I'll go start a new thread on it.

Actually on 50 Monument makes it 35.

I just tested the stacking effects of GoE, monument and Ger. I am assuming the code for Angkor is identical to these other 3.

I can now confirm that the rounding is always to the nearest 5 (or 2) and can be up or down.

The result is entirely not what I expected.
There are NO diminishing returns on stacking these 3 "SET PlotCultureCostModifier=25" bonuses.

Up to the 7th tile, the base tile costs are 20-50-100-160-220-290-365-440-520 as you had presented a few posts ago.
With all 3 in force (70% reduction), the results are always consistently accurate. 6-15-30-50-70-85-110
The 6 was surprising because it is the only non 5 figure even though the calculation result is actually 5!
The first tile went from 20 to 15 (GoE) to 10 (Monument) to 6 (Ger). I think this is the reason:
if(iCultureThreshold > iDivisor * 2)
when the result is below the base of 15, the rounding is to nearest 2.

The reason why I'm surprised that the effects stacked without diminishing returns is because I had always thought that it should not be possible to stack the bonus to the point of 100% in order to not have FREE growth every turn.
Here's what else I had learn from this discussion:

1. GoE was wrongly coded/described. With it only providing 20% instead of 25% as previously thought, the current max bonus is 95% reduction (GoE, Mon, Ger, Angkor). This point is kinda moot though, because it will be fixed and because 2.

2. This line in the function Gazebo posted caught my eye
iModifier = max(iModifier, /*-85*/ GC.getCULTURE_PLOT_COST_MOD_MINIMUM()); // value cannot reduced by more than 85%
Meaning that even with GoE (20 or 25%), Mon, Ger and Angkor, the max is 85%. This makes Angkor Wat works at only 15% (or 10% once GoE is fixed)
This is only possible for the Mongol with Ger. With Ethiopia, the max is 83% (GoE, Stele, Angkor). All other Civ can only manage 75% max.

The costs of tiles would be:
2-8-15-25-35-45-55-65-80 at 85% and
6-15-30-40-55-70-90-110-130 at 75%.

3. Tradition policy Sovereignty does not truly provide 25% deduction and interacts entirely differently with the formula. Based on the cost you shared, the cost of tiles with only bonus from Tradition policy is:
15-30-45-60-70-85-100-110-125

Based on this, I can see that Sovereignty alone would catch up to a maxed civ's 75% bonus by the 8th tile and overtake it from the 9th onward. I can imagine that it'll continue to snowball beyond that, with the % reduction creeping up past the otherwise hard capped 85% eventually.

Stacking other bonuses on it:
2-4-6-8-10-12-15-15-20 when coupled with max 85% reduction bonus. A 96% reduction on the 9th tile, with the 85% bonus accounting for only 105 points or 20%.
4-8-12-15-20-20-25-30-30 at 75% for other Civs. A 94% reduction on the 9th tile, with the 75% bonus accounting for only 95 points or 18%.

In summary,

- GoE does not work like Divine Right and does not increase rate of culture accumulation.
- Sovereignty is the most important border growth bonus if going for the border blob strategy or if one simply wishes to spread fast.
It is still worth stacking other bonuses on it, but it is not going to be as good a return on investment and will only really help early city tile growth.
Angkor Wat is really quite a poor wonder to rush if one already has GoE, since it's other properties are just +1 to GE gen, culture and faith. For the Mongols, this is an even worse deal as they have the Ger.

This is going to entirely change my game!

 

[Navanod]

While I got almost everything that I need to know to tweak my favorite strategy now, I still don't know the why first tile is 20 instead of 15 culture and how exactly the 15+(8(nT-1))^1.1 formula for border growth works since the math does not match the in-game numbers. Without knowing that, it is also not possible to know the exact way that Sovereignty works.

There is either VP affecting the formula in other functions, or this formula is for non-standard game speed?

 

[Lenox1993]

While I got almost everything that I need to know to tweak my favorite strategy now, I still don't know the why first tile is 20 instead of 15 culture and how exactly the 15+(8(nT-1))^1.1 formula for border growth works since the math does not match the in-game numbers. Without knowing that, it is also not possible to know the exact way that Sovereignty works.

There is either VP affecting the formula in other functions, or this formula is for non-standard game speed?

I already stated that that formula is probably wrong and cannot be trusted at all costs!!
But for real, its probably wrong.

 

[Navanod]

I already stated that that formula is probably wrong and cannot be trusted at all costs!!
But for real, its probably wrong.

But you are very right about the power of Sovereignty.
It had the biggest immediate and long term impact on my border growth strategy. At the time of selecting this policy, border culture cost fell from 500 to 80, 155 to 35 and 110 to 30. No wonder I was struggling after switching to Progress!

 

[Navanod]

Sovereignty works like a charm. Granted this is only on Emperor...

 

[Magean]

I was wondering, what was the rationale behind the removal of science from population ?

Not that I dislike this change ; for me, it's just part of an ensemble that I like more than Vanilla. But it was quite a huge move and I wasn't playing the mod back then, so I'd like to know what motivated it.

Thanks

 

[Lenox1993]

I was wondering, what was the rationale behind the removal of science from population ?

Not that I dislike this change ; for me, it's just part of an ensemble that I like more than Vanilla. But it was quite a huge move and I wasn't playing the mod back then, so I'd like to know what motivated it.

Thanks

I think it was a nerf for wide empires? To make tall ones actually viable.

 

[Magean]

I think it was a nerf for wide empires? To make tall ones actually viable.

Strange, I would have thought it the other way around. In Vanilla, tall empires were much more reliable than wide ones, not least because of the scaling effect of science modifiers on a giant city.