Balance - The "Wide vs Tall" Problem

[Wodhann]

I was going to embed a youtube video of Hallelluja but it showed an error, so just imagine that song playing in your heads. FINALLY people get it.

About the unhappiness per trade route, what is the rationality behind it? I agree with mystic, trade routes should be addressed (especially internal trade routes which favor "wide" players), but that it shouldn't be a happiness thing.

Caravansaries should be looked at, but from another perspective I think. Maybe make it so that a city with a caravansary can send as much food/production and get as much gold as a sea trade route (or almost as much at least), and harbors now increase the range of sea trade routes.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'm assuming by 'update the display lua' you mean only the tooltip code (InfoTooltipInclude.lua ? IIRC) that breaks down the yields into their origins, not the TopPanel, CityView and the other 'larger' lua files?

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

[mystikx21]

Wodhann, I don't think I ever didn't get it . My objections weren't to the design or scope but the plausibility of implementing it. I still have questions about how well it would actually perform, and what we should be doing on the top end ("production" of happiness rather than the cost). But if it can work, those objections aren't as salient. They're just questions over juggling numbers essentially.

I don't think that dramatically improves the caravansary/harbor, and I'm not sure the idea should be to discount coastal routes vs land routes in order to make them viable. We want some coastal bias to reflect realism and to make navies important (or at least I want that). That's basically what CEP did, make land routes about as good as sea routes (I don't think it fiddled with internal routes though, that would have helped), and really the thing that made caravansary "useful" was a) add some more gold and b) they were cheap. The harbor had the coastal connection, social policies, and the better sea routes in its favor.

But I agree that we should want to stay away from happiness mechanics getting involved in trade. I'm not sure how that adds anything or what the immersion justification would be that the trade building would somehow make the public absolve itself of whatever problems they have with trade that it should have made them unhappy in the first place. I'm having difficulty understanding both the basis for that idea and the rationale for why this would be a good counter for it. It sounds more like we're reaching for ideas to make the caravansary/harbor "good". Which we can just add some gold or production and take some out in other ways and they become useful already. It doesn't need to be that complicated.

 

[Stalker0]

I agree that caravanseries are a bit boring, harbours get a pass from me for the city connection (though I wouldn't call them super-interesting, either). But I think both work at the moment.

This is the tricky part that we would get caught up in with CEP as well.

The first phase is always the balancing aspect. I never build X, so we should make it stronger, etc.

The more nebulous phase is the "fun" aspect. I build this building, but its so boring, lets spice it up.



To Woodhann's idea, so can I get an example of how this would look in play? Give me some example of these "thresholds" you speak of, and how they would change over time in play.

Also, we have to factor in a UI change to account for these. If a player cannot easily understand what cities are unhappy and why, the system will never be that effective.

 

[Gazebo]

I'm assuming by 'update the display lua' you mean only the tooltip code (InfoTooltipInclude.lua ? IIRC) that breaks down the yields into their origins, not the TopPanel, CityView and the other 'larger' lua files?

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

Yeah, the LUA is done. I'm about to roll out a test version for you guys to look at. All the happiness things we've discussed are in, and are modular/tweakable.

I was going to embed a youtube video of Hallelluja but it showed an error, so just imagine that song playing in your heads. FINALLY people get it.

A 'thanks, Gazebo, for writing 15 custom functions and custom LUA for my idea' would be nice.
G

 

[mystikx21]

we have to factor in a UI change to account for these. If a player cannot easily understand what cities are unhappy and why, the system will never be that effective.

- this is also a big factor.

Stalker, I'd say that "I build this but" factors shouldn't be a major consideration unless the process is to alter the basic function but add a "fun" function that keeps it roughly as useful. Harbors fit the second category and are basically fine. You'd have use for them in every coastal city (if for no other reason than the instant railroad connections without building railroads). Caravansary fit the first I think.

 

[Gazebo]

New version incoming. Includes a bunch of stuff - see new post. We'll need to work with the happiness values for the new system, but the initial impression is optimistic. Definitely forces the player to step back and really analyze their empire's weaknesses.

we have to factor in a UI change to account for these. If a player cannot easily understand what cities are unhappy and why, the system will never be that effective.

Indeed- I've included a breakdown of what is causing unhappiness on an overall scale (i.e. x unhappiness from disconnected cities or x unhappiness from pillage tiles, and so on). Should be good enough for now.
G

 

[Wodhann]

A 'thanks, Gazebo, for writing 15 custom functions and custom LUA for my idea' would be nice.

Obviously everybody appreciates the work you and whoward do, and this would literally be impossible without you guys, what I was saying is, people finally see it as a reasonable applicable idea rather than a crazy custom feature.

To Woodhann's idea

Wodhann*

 

[Gazebo]

See if I grasped your idea with the newest build - I'm pretty happy with the fundamentals thus far (function-wise). The values need a lot of work for late-game balance.
G

 

[Wodhann]

See if I grasped your idea with the newest build - I'm pretty happy with the fundamentals thus far (function-wise). The values need a lot of work for late-game balance.
G

I'll let the rest let us know what they think, I'm a bit intimidated by the install process so I'll wait until there is some sort of install tool or until it's closer to being neatly compiled into a single bulk.

 

[Anastase Alex]

One fear: this system will make tourism victories even harder if the AI adds culture everywhere to overcome happyness issues. In general it would be interesting at some future point to examine the different victory conditions and make sure they are all attainable.

 

[Gazebo]

I'll let the rest let us know what they think, I'm a bit intimidated by the install process so I'll wait until there is some sort of install tool or until it's closer to being neatly compiled into a single bulk.

It is quite simple to install. You should test the idea you sponsored, seeing as it is fairly complex.
G

Anastase,

Agreed. Tourism will probably have to be increased late game to compensate.
G

 

[Gazebo]

New version uploaded, happiness system tweaked further. Feedback would be nice on this one. I added a new chunk of LUA for the system - on the economic overview screen, you can get a detailed explanation of what is causing unhappiness in each city (gold, food, defense, etc.). Open the city dropdown menu on the happiness/unhappiness tab, and hover over each city to see what is causing your empire to revolt!

It is also a simple install now. One download. One click. Any simpler and I guess I'll have to come over and install it for you all.

Cheers,
G

 

[Anastase Alex]

Dear Mister Gazebo and the rest of the community too, I just want to say THANK YOU for all you have done. This week-end will be testing time for me

 

[Wodhann]

New version uploaded, happiness system tweaked further. Feedback would be nice on this one. I added a new chunk of LUA for the system - on the economic overview screen, you can get a detailed explanation of what is causing unhappiness in each city (gold, food, defense, etc.). Open the city dropdown menu on the happiness/unhappiness tab, and hover over each city to see what is causing your empire to revolt!

I tried the mod and it doesn't seem to change anything from the vanilla game for me (at least not in the whole happiness/balance department), not sure what I did wrong. I used the second link.

 

[Gazebo]

I tried the mod and it doesn't seem to change anything from the vanilla game for me (at least not in the whole happiness/balance department), not sure what I did wrong. I used the second link.

It should - make sure you cleared your cache/moduserdata etc. and that you are only running the CP (no need for Whoward's mod components or anything else). You'll know if it is working if your citizens aren't producing unhappiness by virtue of existing.
G

 

[Wodhann]

It should - make sure you cleared your cache/moduserdata etc.

Can you PM me how to do that? Sorry, I'm a bit of noob in that regard.

 

[Gazebo]

Go to your Documents/My Games/Civ 5 folder, and delete everything in the cache and moduserdata folders.
G

 

[Wodhann]

Happiness discussion has generated threads on their own, so no need to discuss that here anymore - but we're not done yet. The WvT problem isn't just about happiness management. Our new system allows for a less "no-brainer" style management of the "speedbumps", but speedbumps are still speedbumps and we need to focus on the actual mechanics that make Wide generally a better idea than Tall.

As I said in the happiness system thread, wide should be a "higher risk" choice, one that should be carefully managed, while tall should be a more comfortable position where people who are behind can steadly recuperate and come back into the game, rather than being stuck into a position where they're at a stall and have no hope of winning.

Let's start by talking internal trade routes. Currently a player with many cities has more internal trade routes, which means more production and food, while those cities end up producing enough gold so that player often doesn't even need to have external trade routes. This just creates the "tall and wide" scenario, where the player has a massively large and well populated empire that just steamrolls over the others.

Should internal trade routes be limited? Or should wide empires have to spend more gold? Or should the system be changed in some form?

 

[whoward69]

Should internal trade routes be limited?

Never understood the "food and production from nowhere" effect of internal trade routes. If you're shipping goods from A to B, simply supply and demand mechanics will generate revenue (gold) but the goods don't arrive out of thin air.

Internal trade routes should be a decision between food/production here (A) or there (B) not both. And, like processes, the amount of food/prod arriving at B should be a (configurable) percent of what left A