Balancing Game Speeds

[Chandler]

Not many fans of Epic or Marathon Speed around, right? ^^u.

So... In the end, I decided to create a new thread, as my message here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/city-state-interaction.621433/#post-14971583 seems to go unnoticed ^^u. I'll copy it here again, I hope with better luck this time, and I'll add a few more things.

As a usual marathon player, I'm starting to feel guilty (after a few months ^^u) about how much advantage I can take of the issues with the rewards from CS in this game speed. Not really a top priority, I know. But I just wanted to address some problems.

Many rewards, such as flat , , , , , , , or experience, may need to be tripled, as they already seem to be, due to the increased costs of everything. However, we also have rewards of Great General and Great Admiral points tripled. And I think we shouldn't. The issue, of course, being that GG and GA requirements remain unchanged at any game speed.

I also have some more polemical ideas. About not tripling the influence reward. Or maybe even about not tripling anything at all. The thing is... At Standard speed, a reward of a quest in the Ancient Era is usually not enough to become an ally of a CS. Maybe not even to become friends. When you play in Marathon speed, however, it certainly is, unless you are surrounded by irrational CSs giving ridiculously low rewards. And then the snowball begins, much earlier, and much stronger. We already have a slowed pace of influence loss, and that should be enough for the increased time needed to accomplish some missions and producing diplomatic units.

About the flat rewards not being tripled... I'm less sure. Nevertheless, with three times more turns, CSs usually have time to ask for many more missions than in Standard speed, and you have more time to accomplish them. I think "three times more" Standard speed flat rewards should make up for the virtually less flat yields you'd be getting for each mission. The flat gifts for meeting them, though, should remain tripled, as you won't be able to do that more than once per game, as in Standard and actually any game speed.

***

Along with this, I wanted to ask why the starting Happiness in Marathon speed is three times the Standard's. I mean, sure, Golden Ages needs more GAP to trigger in Marathon. But you also have more turns, so it shouldn't matter.

You start the game at 15 , that's full bonus % from Happiness, and 5 more, meaning you're not likely to lose that bonus soon. And you don't need it. One more thing that makes easier to snowball in Marathon.

***

All civs are better in slower Game Speeds, but some of them are significantly affected one way or another by the current situation, either because of their great synergy with City States, or by their UBs or UUs. Or both. Of course, some are more affected than others:

• Greek UA and UU: affected by influence rewards from City State's quests. Solved if the influence don't change whatever the Game Speed you're playing in. About the UU, you've recently changed the experience needed to get promotions depending on the Game Speed you're playing in, because in slower speeds it's easier to fight more and get more promotions. Well, with the Great Generals promotion, it's easier to get more Generals, too, and sooner than you should.
• Germany UA: affected by influence rewards from City State's quests. Solved if the influence don't change whatever the Game Speed you're playing in.
• Rome UB: same as Great Generals promotion. If you can fight more, you can get more Generals and Admirals from Colosseums, and sooner than you should.
• Celts UB: two of the Unique Pantheons, Morrigan (General) and Mannanan (Admiral) give Great Person Points passively with the Ceilidh Hall. You don't even need to fight. If you don't increase the amount of points required, as Celts you'll be getting more Great Generals/Admirals, and you'll get them sooner than you should.
• England UA: indirectly affected by influence rewards from City State's quests. With your early agents, you can try attempting some coups in City States allied to other civs by a ton of influence.
• Sweden UA: affected by GGP rewards from City State's quests, and by the increased number of combats to a lesser extent. If you can fight more, you can get more GG, and so your units also will be stronger.
• Arabia UA: affected by GGP/GAP rewards from City State's quests, and from the increased number of combats to a lesser extent. If you can fight more, you can get more GG and GA, and so you'll get more Historic Events.
• Spain UA: not much, but affected by influence rewards from City State's quests. The bigger their influence is, the more difficult will be for other civs to spread their religion to those City States.
• Portugal UA: trade routes grant GGP and GAP per turn/movement passively. You don't even need to fight. With three times more turns, more Generals and Admirals will appear, and sooner than they should.
• Austria UA: affected by influence and GGP/GAP rewards from City State's quests. Solved if the influence and GGP and GAP don't change whatever the Game Speed is.
• Japan UA and UU: affected by GGP/GAP rewards from City State's quests, and from the increased number of combats due to the Great General promotion of the Samurais.
• Siam UA: affected by influence rewards from City State's quests.
• Korea UA: affected by GGP/GAP rewards from City State's quests, and from the increased number of combats to a lesser extent. If you can fight more, you can get more GG and GA, and so more Golden Age Points.

There might be more, but I can't see them now, and I think those are already plenty.

Including the change to the influence rewards not increasing with the Game Speed, I'd suggest to change the starting points of Great General and Great Admiral to increase, depending on the Game Speed, but not change the pace at they increase. For example:

• Standard Speed: 200 > 400 > 600 > 800 > 1000...
• Epic Speed: 300 > 500 > 700 > 900 > 1100...
• Marathon Speed: 600 > 800 > 1000 > 1200 > 1400...

Another option could be changing only the starting requirements until the Standard's are reached:

• Epic: 300 > 400 > 600 > 800 > 1000...
• Marathon: 600 > 600 > 600 > 800 > 1000...

This way, active and specially the passive abilities (Celts and Portugal) wouldn't be that affected by the Game Speed, and the GGP and GAP rewards from City States could remain unchanged.

I'm not sure about how this changes should be applied to Quick Speed, as I never play in that Speed, sorry.

***

And I think that's all for now. I hope someone will read this ^^u.

If there was already a thread like this, I'm sorry for creating a new one. I checked for it a little, but couldn't find it.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I don't play Marathon/Epic, but I support the efforts into making the game balanced on those speeds as well! Good post!

 

[vyyt]

According to this survey:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-vox-populi-player-statistic.620720/

There are roughly 26.5% of us playing on Epic (including me) and 8% playing Marathon.

Nice post BTW, must have taken time to compile.

 

[Ziad]

I actually agree with regards to Generals and Admirals. The counter needs to be scaled somewhat with gamespeed.

This actually touches on the note of CS, as I've had many times where I'd get a quest that provides 180 GG points...and another quest that gives me 300 culture for a GG spawn on turn 32 (Marathon).

Quests like those almost feel like cheese. Increasing the scale can make the GG less easy to obtain so early in the game.

 

[Chandler]

I actually agree with regards to Generals and Admirals. The counter needs to be scaled somewhat with gamespeed.

This actually touches on the note of CS, as I've had many times where I'd get a quest that provides 180 GG points...and another quest that gives me 300 culture for a GG spawn on turn 32 (Marathon).

Quests like those almost feel like cheese. Increasing the scale can make the GG less easy to obtain so early in the game.

180 GGP for a "Clear Barbarian Encampment" quest in Marathon is normal right now, and even more. But rewards also scale with era. I remember a game where 7 or 8 City States requested to demonstrate that the World was round. I had already taken the Statecraft policy that granted 50% more rewards for quests. Still, combining all of their rewards I could get about 10.000 Great Admiral Points (not counting influence here). Some of them gave me more than 2.500! Great Admiral Points. I hadn't even had any naval combat before. But they gave me NINE! Great Admirals. Just like that. That's simply not fair.

I am more and more convinced that increasing the starting points requirements for GGs and GAs is not enough to solve this problem. It's a hard aspect to balance, though, as increasing the requirements too much (e.g. 600 > 1200 > 1800 > 2400...) could lead to almost no appeareance of GGs and GAs. Also, I think we don't want to make the appeareance of these GPs too dependable of City State's rewards. Otherwise, if you somehow don't manage to accomplish any of those quests, you'd need to fight A LOT to see a GG or a GA be born. So maybe the best solution could be to somewhat increase the starting point for them (as in those first suggestions I made in my previous message), but make the CSs rewards don't change whatever your Game Speed is.

***

Edit. Nevermind that. I've been thinking about another approach:

• Make it so that influence rewards doesn't scale with Game Speed.
• Make it so that GGP and GAP requirements scale with Game Speed (as in: 300 > 600 > 900 > 1200... in Epic; and: 600 > 1200 > 1800 > 2400... in Marathon). This would definitely balance Portugal and Celts "passive" abilities. Also, this way you could keep the flat GGP and GAP rewards untouched, though I think they need to change.
• Make it so that GGP and GAP earned through XP from combat scale with Game Speed. So 5 XP from a melee combat would equal 15 GGP in Marathon, and... 7? 8? in Epic. Don't know if it's possible, but I think it'd be the best approach.
• About flat rewards from City States... up to you. Though I'd consider let them scale less. Also, particularly about GGPs rewards, I think it's way easier in slower Game Speeds to clear more barbarian encampments, as you still don't have any civilians to protect by that early stage of your game (or very few), so you can dedicate all your military units to clear most of the barbarian encampments.

 

[Chandler]

So... I've been out from the game for two months (although I've been reading this forum almost every day), and I didn't test the last changes that were done to game speeds. I'm playing with the modpack version of 3-17 now, and the initial happiness still scalates with the game speed, even though it does less than before. Why?

Quick: 5
Standard: 5
Epic: 7
Marathon: 10 (IIRC, it was 15 before)

Why not 5 for every game speed? Or is it impossible to do it?

 

[tu_79]

It was believed to be to easy for human players, compared to standard. Now slower paces are harder.

 

[Chandler]

Slower paces are harder? I thought the more chances the player had to adapt to any event (meaning: more turns), the easier it should be. What changed?

 

[pineappledan]

You epic/marathon gamers are the bane of my existence

 

[Rekk]

Edit. Nevermind that. I've been thinking about another approach:

• Make it so that influence rewards doesn't scale with Game Speed.
• Make it so that GGP and GAP requirements scale with Game Speed (as in: 300 > 600 > 900 > 1200... in Epic; and: 600 > 1200 > 1800 > 2400... in Marathon). This would definitely balance Portugal and Celts "passive" abilities. Also, this way you could keep the flat GGP and GAP rewards untouched, though I think they need to change.
• Make it so that GGP and GAP earned through XP from combat scale with Game Speed. So 5 XP from a melee combat would equal 15 GGP in Marathon, and... 7? 8? in Epic. Don't know if it's possible, but I think it'd be the best approach.
• About flat rewards from City States... up to you. Though I'd consider let them scale less. Also, particularly about GGPs rewards, I think it's way easier in slower Game Speeds to clear more barbarian encampments, as you still don't have any civilians to protect by that early stage of your game (or very few), so you can dedicate all your military units to clear most of the barbarian encampments.

I think the main thing we need more information on right now is how the rate of City State quests scales with game speed. If, in a given game, there are three times the number of City State quests in Marathon as there are in Standard, then rewards shouldn't scale with game speed, including yields. I match game speed with map size, (so that Quick is played on Small, Epic is played on Large and Marathon is played on Huge), and as such there is a corresponding increase in the number of city states in the world. By the end of the game, you have 0.67/1.5/3 times the number of city states all giving out quests, and at the beginning, your pathfinder/scout is discovering an increased number of city states as well, with more turns to find them (and the opposite for Quick games).

The goal is for an Epic game to receive 1.5x the instant yields that a civ would get if it was in Standard. If there are 1.5x the number of city states (as is the case for a proper Large game), then the civ is receiving 1.5x the number of quests. It seems to me that instant yields shouldn't increase at all, and influence rewards should actually decrease, since the benchmark for Friendly/Allied stays constant with game speed.

Related, does anyone know if influence / turn (like with Statecraft's Trade Confederacy) scales with game speed? It should, due to the Friendly/Allied benchmark.

Another option is to have the Friendly/Allied/Max Hated benchmark scale with game speed, then influence yields wouldn't have to change at all.

 

[Rekk]

Does anyone know how Investment / Buy costs are calculated? For example, a shrine costs 65 production and 80 gold to invest in Standard, but 195 production and 170 gold to invest in Marathon.

 

[Rekk]

It looks like the number of turns before barbarians can enter your borders doesn't really scale with game speed. In Marathon, barbarians can start attacking your city before you can complete your first construction (be it unit or building)!

 

[Rekk]

Technology Costs and Golden Age lengths for Epic are divergent from every other game speed. They scale at 2x instead of 1.5x, while Quick is set to 0.67x and Marathon is set to 3x. These two parameters are the only two parameters that diverge from the other game speeds.

What is the intention behind this? What specifically is it about Epic that makes it 33% easier to research (and therefore must be made harder to compensate) than other game speeds?

 

[HungryForFood]

I raised it in Github before, and G closed the issue without changing anything, so I'm assuming intended?

 

[Rekk]

I raised it in Github before, and G closed the issue without changing anything, so I'm assuming intended?

The reasoning provided by Enginseer does not answer the issue. Apparently everything but Tech costs & Golden Age lengths got reduced to 150% because otherwise players who made the wrong decisions were excessively punished. However, from what I understand, Epic speed is supposed to be 150% length from standard, not 200%.

If Enginseer is correct and Epic is actually supposed to scale at 200%, what's different specifically between it and Marathon? Apparently Marathon is being punished for bad mistakes, since everything scales at 300%, not 225%.

 

[Gazebo]

Technology Costs and Golden Age lengths for Epic are divergent from every other game speed. They scale at 2x instead of 1.5x, while Quick is set to 0.67x and Marathon is set to 3x. These two parameters are the only two parameters that diverge from the other game speeds.

What is the intention behind this? What specifically is it about Epic that makes it 33% easier to research (and therefore must be made harder to compensate) than other game speeds?

AI balancing tests showed that this was a good value for epic.

G

 

[Rekk]

AI balancing tests showed that this was a good value for epic.

G

Do you have any analysis as to why that is? It's a massive anomaly.

 

[Moi Magnus]

AI balancing tests showed that this was a good value for epic.

G

With all the rebalancing made to tech cost, is it still true?
(I don't know when you did the tests, but if it was before the science per population was removed, it may be obsolete)

And what about Marathon? I doubt anything that apply to epic is not amplified in marathon.

 

[Rekk]

AI balancing tests showed that this was a good value for epic.

G

What do you mean by "good value"? At 200% research costs, Epic games were won at roughly the same years as Standard and Marathon? The balance between techs and policies stayed roughly constant between game speeds?

How can I test this to create evidence one way or another? My current plan is to try and get three near identical maps in marathon, epic, and standard, place the other AI far away and solitaire tech my way to victory as Babylon (?) to see what the baseline turns to victory is in each game speed. If this data is worthless to you, I'll just be wasting my time.

 

[ElliotS]

If this data is worthless to you, I'll just be wasting my time.

You'd need dozens of tests for it to be useful AFAIK. Given that the AIs won't behave the same, the outcomes will be different.