[Balance] Seven's Balance Tweaks

[SevenSpirits]

Available in the mod browser:

Short description

Nerf city-state ally bonuses. Increase unit upgrade costs. Boost value of various non-farm improvements, mostly at medieval techs, making mines and lumbermills competive with river farms, and making grassland less inferior to plains. Most notably, Lumbermills are 2h, Mines get +1h at Metal Casting, and Trading Posts are +1 gold. Also reduce golden age length by 1 turn and make it scale linearly with game speed.

Details
First available version was labeled v2. As of 1 Oct 2010 there is a v3. 5 Oct: v4. Changes have been noted below.

* City states do not double their gifts when allied. Allying "only" also gets you their resources, military help, vision, and patronage bonuses.
* Upgrade cost per-hammer factor increased from 2g per hammer to 3.
* Mines +1h at Metal Casting, and at Dynamite.
* Lumbermills +1h.
* Trading Posts +1g. [v3: only at Currency.]
* River farms -1g at Civil Service.
* River farms additionally +1f at Fertilizers.
* Camp +1g, Pasture +1h with Machinery, Plantation +2g with Compass.
* Base golden age length reduced to 9 (from 10). Golden age length now scales proportionally to game speed. (Previously they were unfairly long in Quick and short in Epic/Marathon.)
* Merchant yield 3g (from 2).
* Engineer yield 2h (from 1).
* All GP improvements +2 of their yield type, Customs house an additional +1.
* v3: AIs will value gold 40% higher for trades than previously, and gold-per-turn 33% higher. Essentially the main effect is that it won't pay as much for your resources and one-sided open borders.
* v4: Horseman (and Companion Cavalry) strength reduced by 2 (from 12 to 10, and from 14 to 12, respectively).

Reasoning for all the yield changes is as follows: River farms are too efficient compared the other improvements. Because of this and golden ages, plains is too efficient compared to grassland. Also, production improvements in general suck.

Boosting production improvements (Lumbermill and Mine) to be as efficient as River farms makes them viable. Reducing farm gold additionally makes them a tiny bit more efficient than farms, which in turn improves grassland vs plains. Making all these improvements happen in first-column medieval techs makes this all fair and reduces the brokenness of beelining one of them (e.g. Civil Service).

All other yield changes are to keep those improvements competive with the more critical food/production ones. (Some specialists and GP improvements also needed help anyway.)

Goals

My goal is to incorporate a minimal number of changes that improve some of the main problems with the game. Other than AI issues which are less easily fixable at the moment, I see the main problems as:

- Civil Service slingshot is too powerful.
- River farms are dominant over other improvements.
- Production improvements (mines, lumbermills) are rarely worthwhile.
- Grassland is far inferior to plains, both because food improvements are more efficient than production improvements, and because of golden ages.
- City state alliances are absurdly strong.
- Maritime city states are particularly strong, providing a powerful food source that scales with city count.
- Rushing and upgrading wimpy units is much cheaper than rushing the powerful unit in the first place.
- GP improvements are dominated by their other abilities.

These are all addressed in the mod so far. (Note: I'm aiming for adjustments that are on the mild side as I think overcompensating is far less desirable.)

Not yet addressed:
- Building costs (Some seem to be never worth building.)
- ???

For building costs, I think it would be premature to re-cost everything at the same time as boosting production improvements. For other perceived imbalances, either they've slipped my mind, or I'm not confident they're a problem yet, or I don't see an obviously good solution, or I believe their best solution would be AI-based.

I welcome suggestions on what else should be fixed. Keep in mind I prefer small, carefully thought-out changes, and please support your suggestions with evidence and argument.

 

[rspeer]

Excellent! If I didn't desperately need sleep, I'd be playing this right now.

 

[Starfleeter]

This looks like a great mod and I'll probably try it out when I get some free time tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how this mod plays out with the Fewer Bad Buildings and Fewer Bad Wonders mods that changes buildings and wonders production values and effects.

 

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks for sharing your excitement guys!

Incidentally...
* Fixed a bug where only people with the letters s, e, e, r, in their username in that order could post in this thread.

 

[Gerurun]

Really cool. Hopefully these mods will spur balance changes on Fraxis' part.

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I like the idea, but is the -1g for river farms at Civil Service really necessary?

I think the real issue is that Golden Ages improve tile yields when they should instead improve city production/gold (and probably food and GPP) by a static percentage.

Edit: It looks like your fix accommodates e, r, u, r now.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I like the idea, but is the -1g for river farms at Civil Service really necessary?

I think the real issue is that Golden Ages improve tile yields when they should instead improve city production/gold (and probably food and GPP) by a static percentage.

Edit: It looks like your fix accommodates e, r, u, r now.

It may not be, but without it, farms/mines/lumbermills are all equivalent to the extent that you want to trade off food for hammers. Additionally, forest/plains/hills are all fairly equivalent, with only grassland being clearly worse post-CS.

With the -1g though, farms become less efficient than mines/lumbermills, which has several secondary effects related to wanting to not have to make farms for your food:
- Grassland is strengthened compared to plains. (It's still weaker, because of golden ages, but it's less clear-cut.)
- Lumbermills are strengthened compared to mines, because they are 1/3 instead of 0/4. (I like this because it's a reason not to chop.)

Additionally I think it gives some real tradeoffs to think about when improving your land, as there's some actual asymmetry between improvements. It also makes it matter more exactly which tiles you farm. Maybe you mostly farm grasslands for your food surplus, so that in a golden age you can avoid working them altogether.

 

[Alexfrog]

I love these proposed changes.

I'm unsure about -1gold on river farms, but the reasoning is good. I worry that it might make them too weak compared to the now improved mines. The thing is that large food surpluses are pretty weak once you reach a decent city size, because it costs SO much to grow one more population. Yes there very good for starting a city, which makes sense to me. But I dont know, maybe it works well and balances civil service. But I need to try it to see how it goes.

For GP improvements, I like having them all worth +5. 5 science, 5 culture, 5 production. For the merchant, it should be more than 5 gold of course becasue gold is about half as valuable. I'd actually prefer to go with a mix of food and gold (like Civ4 merchants). For example, 1 food 8 gold or 2 food 6 gold.

For trading post, instead of being 3 gold what about 2 gold 1 science? Alternately, 2 gold and they start giving science at a certain tech. (And of course another science later if you get that rationalism policy).
Alternately, 3 gold, and a 4th gold at a certain tech. I think 2 gold is about as good as 1 food or production. In the timeframe where mines give 2 hammers, it would make sense that trading posts should give 4 gold or 2 gold 1 science.

Also: specialists. Engineer 2P and Merchant 3G are still much weaker than scientist at 3S. Plus I believe that scientists are stronger (not sure but thats my current thought. Their improvment is actually strong, and they can bulb a free tech which is big). I'd like to see engineer 3P and Merchant ~6G (gold is about half as valuable, again, is my thought).

 

[SevenSpirits]

For GP improvements, I like having them all worth +5. 5 science, 5 culture, 5 production. For the merchant, it should be more than 5 gold of course becasue gold is about half as valuable. I'd actually prefer to go with a mix of food and gold (like Civ4 merchants). For example, 1 food 8 gold or 2 food 6 gold.

I also think mixes of yields, like the civ IV settled specialists, would be coolest. On the other hand it's not really significant so I just went with a simple change for now.

For trading post, instead of being 3 gold what about 2 gold 1 science? Alternately, 2 gold and they start giving science at a certain tech. (And of course another science later if you get that rationalism policy).
Alternately, 3 gold, and a 4th gold at a certain tech. I think 2 gold is about as good as 1 food or production. In the timeframe where mines give 2 hammers, it would make sense that trading posts should give 4 gold or 2 gold 1 science.

Golden ages already give +1g to trading posts over mines/lumbermills on non-river tiles part of the time. It's possible Trading Posts should get another +1g at some tech though, I'm not sure. I don't have much experience with the late game. I think having them be gold-only is preferable to giving 2g1s, because it lets you specialize your cities more. (Farms and science buildings, TPs and gold buildings.) University/jungles and that Rationalism policy can change this some of the time anyway, and if those don't apply to you some of the time, there is more variety in the game.

Also: specialists. Engineer 2P and Merchant 3G are still much weaker than scientist at 3S. Plus I believe that scientists are stronger (not sure but thats my current thought. Their improvment is actually strong, and they can bulb a free tech which is big). I'd like to see engineer 3P and Merchant ~6G (gold is about half as valuable, again, is my thought).

I'm pretty sure I agree (engineers might be fine though - rushing a wonder is pretty unique). But it's really hazy, because no one ever makes those specialists with the current game, right? I'll definitely give another +1g to merchants. I don't think I compensated them yet for increasing improvement yields, only for being awful.

 

[rspeer]

I'm having fun with this. But I think the +1g on trading posts removes some key tension from the game. It's easy to make lots of money now, and money makes everything else.

I think part of the point of trading posts is that they're not particularly good and yet you need them anyway.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I'm having fun with this. But I think the +1g on trading posts removes some key tension from the game. It's easy to make lots of money now, and money makes everything else.

I think part of the point of trading posts is that they're not particularly good and yet you need them anyway.

Heh, Alex above you was arguing that Trading Posts aren't good enough now, compared to the upgraded other improvements! What to think.

Is your opinion that TPs are too strong, or that gold is too plentiful? (Or both?) If it turns out gold is too plentiful it's naturally possible to increase upkeeps or other gold costs. If you think trading posts are too good you're probably wrong, since I buffed them less than competing improvements.

Maybe you didn't build enough buildings?

By the way I definitely appreciate any playtest info. Thanks

 

[rspeer]

My argument wasn't that trading posts are too strong, it's that they're not supposed to be strong. You build TPs because you need them, not because they're awesome. Am I missing some strategy where you never build any trading posts because you can somehow turn food into gold?

The way that TPs compete with other improvements is that they have +gold, and other improvements don't (except on special resources). Adding lots of gold isn't balanced by adding lots of production, it's balanced by taking an equivalent amount of gold out of the game somewhere. (Higher upgrade costs don't balance that in themselves.)

So do I build not enough buildings, or do you build too many? It's a matter of perspective, I guess, but I tried building the number of buildings I'd usually build in Civ5 and I was never short on money. Given that adding more gold to the game and encouraging more buildings per city weren't in your stated goals, I see this as an accidental change to the gameplay.

 

[SevenSpirits]

My argument wasn't that trading posts are too strong, it's that they're not supposed to be strong. You build TPs because you need them, not because they're awesome. Am I missing some strategy where you never build any trading posts because you can somehow turn food into gold?

Well we both agree they are not supposed to be strong. My question was do you think they are too strong, i.e. stronger than they are supposed to be.

So do I build not enough buildings, or do you build too many? It's a matter of perspective, I guess, but I tried building the number of buildings I'd usually build in Civ5 and I was never short on money. Given that adding more gold to the game and encouraging more buildings per city weren't in your stated goals, I see this as an accidental change to the gameplay.

My goals definitely included fixing problems, including "Production improvements (mines, lumbermills) are rarely worthwhile." A clear effect of this would be that more things get built. Probably this would include buildings.

My guess is that with the changes in this mod, mines and lumbermills are more efficient than trading posts. The result of optimal play under these conditions is to build as many trading posts as you need and as many production improvements as you can. That sounds just like what you would like trading posts to work like, right?

If you were flooded in gold, there are a few possible explanations:
1) Trading Posts were better than I thought. They are outclassing production improvements too much.
2) You built close to the same relative numbers of improvements as one should without the mod, which means that instead of netting extra production, you netted a smaller amount of extra production (possibly none, as mines and lumbermills were pretty rare I think) and a large amount of extra gold.
3) Mines and Lumbermills are worse than I thought, even with the extra hammer, and are still not good independently of other changes. In this case the main difference of the mod is the trading post buff, so you get extra gold because of that.

My guess is that the answer is 2), because logically I think that if mines/lumbermills gained a hammer and TPs only gained a gold, and their values were pretty close before, mines/lumbermills must now be better.

 

[bobbyboy29]

SevenSpirits. I REALLY like the way you changed city states. I think that this will really balance out the patronage policy track without detracting from the fun of city states. Great job!

A couple of other ideas to improve balance: Instead of nerfing trading posts you should make building costs cheaper. The extra gold from the posts will cancel out with the extra maint. you'll pay on buildings. (Maybe it should even go to +3 at printing press)This will allow for a far more flexible economy.

Also consider increasing the probability that a city will naturally expand its borders to hills via culture. This will allow players to reap the benefits of your much improved mines.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the changes overall except the TP change. I don't think they should get +1 gold up front. They are already useful right now for non river plains and grasslands...and with you other bumps I would consider them competitive but not weak.

Now I could see giving them a +1 bonus at something like economics (am I the only one that thinks its strange that economics doesn't actually get you any economic bonuses or buildings?)

 

[ashmizen]

I agree with above, +3 gold right from the beginning is too much, maybe +1 later on might make sense.

I agree with your changes, but also consider boosting all non-happiness, non-military resources. Happiness Resources and military resources are vital, but what used to be heath resources (that could get +1 happiness from a Grainery or Storehouse) now suck. You can basically ignore them when looking at city placement, as they are a mere +1 food, and after Civil Service no better than any river tile.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I agree with your changes, but also consider boosting all non-happiness, non-military resources. Happiness Resources and military resources are vital, but what used to be heath resources (that could get +1 happiness from a Grainery or Storehouse) now suck. You can basically ignore them when looking at city placement, as they are a mere +1 food, and after Civil Service no better than any river tile.

I'm not going to boost them from the start. The reason is that they are already a significant boost to your initial city (having a 3-thing tile to work, instead of just 2-thing tiles). This is one thing Civ V does better than IV IMO: not have your starting position so heavily dependent on what resources are in it.

However, I did already improve most of those resources: pastures give +1 hammer at machinery, and camps give +1 gold. I think that just leaves fish unboosted.

 

[Alexfrog]

I think that trading posts at +2 gold are not worth it, especially if mines are 2 production. 1 Gold is not nearly equivalent to a food or production. About 2 gold is approximately equivalent to a food or production.

What about 2 base, 3 with currency, 4 with economics or banking or something like that (whichever of those is first)? And then later on you get +1 science if you go Rationalism. Thats kindof like building cottages in Civ4, they grow over time.

I'd like to see trading post as a viable alternative to farm and mine, not just something that sucks but you build it because you 'have to'. (I never 'have to' make them to get money. I get tons of money selling all my resources to the AIs at crazy rates).

 

[Franks]

I think that trading posts at +2 gold are not worth it

But they are still necessary.

 

[rune42]

You devalue Russia's +1 hammer production per strategic resource.
You devalue Iroquois' +1 hammer production per forest.
You devalue certain SPs.
You devalue Golden Ages in total production/gold it adds, and therefore; devalue Persia's +50% GA.( i don't mean reducing the length of a GA, i mean the amount of hammers/gold it adds to your overall pool. The reduction in base GA length is a sound idea and I don't see any unintended affects that it may cause)

+1 hammers to a tile that already has 5 hammers is essentially a +20% boost to the tile. +1 hammer to a tile that has 1 hammer is a 100% boost.

I haven't delved too deeply at your proposed changes, but they may cause other unintended imbalances in the long run.