Beta 7.2.4 Comments

[Txurce]

I'm delighted to see China leapfrog from boring to more interesting than it's ever been. The changes to all the other Leaders also look good to me. And revising the Tradition tree layout should give it a lot more flexibility.

The only question I had was swapping personalities for Elizabeth and Darius. I can see why England would focus on world domination... although in my games Elizabeth always did very well with her old goals. But Darius going for science doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that the devs meant for Persia to be a military power with some flexibility, and succeeded. Vanilla Persia is widely considered top-tier, and is popular as a result.

After someone complained that the Bazaar was boring - although it fits with GA's and balanced the other traits - you turned the Bazaar into a production facility, then nerfed the SA. That was a net loss to Persian military prowess, but still left them focused on a military path.

So why have them focus on Science? I know you don't think they're great at war, but this is not a consensus view. More to the point, the GA trait alone doesn't make them particularly suited for Science, anyway. Do we need a certain number of civs to go one way or another? Regardless, if possible I would suggest that both England and Persia be equally likely to go for Science as Conquest.

 

[Thalassicus]

Like we discussed in the other thread, Persia doesn't work well for conquest victories:

On paper the movement bonuses, production, gold, and Immortal's healing are all super for a warmonger. However, to get the first 3 we need to emphasize:

• High happiness.
• National wonders.
• Culture buildings (for Great Artist golden ages).
• Can't spam manufactories.

Time spent making NWs and culture buildings is time lost making units and production/gold buildings... and not having manufactories significantly slows training in our military city. I only have limited experience with games as Persia, but it seems an ideal strategy might be Tradition tree -> 4 temples from Aristocracy -> National Epic -> Monarchy's GE on Chichen Itza -> Artist spam, probably aiming for a Science victory since we're not using the artists on landmarks. Warfare helps a science victory, but with the restrictions listed above it's the opposite of a conquest path.

I suspect Persia doesn't work for small-empire cultural victories either since spamming landmarks is good for that, while to use Persia's trait we should golden-age the artists instead. Golden ages are also more useful for large empires, and large empires are best for science victories. This means Darius probably fits in the "expansionist" personality.

In contrast England works very well for conquest. Longbows, naval power, and the prod/gold from Steam Mills are all well suited for a domination victory.


The only change to Persia right now replaces the 10% combat bonus from golden ages with +25% military production on the Satrap's Court. It's basically a shift away from a midgame in-combat bonus to a midgame out-of-combat bonus.

The combat bonus was only 5% in normal circumstances, and only applies during golden ages:
(1 + .2 + .6 + .1) / (1 + .2 + .6) = 5%

The production bonus is rather large, but is available somewhat late:
(1 + .15 + .25 + .25) / (1 + .15 + .25) = 18%

It's not possible to make an AI favor multiple victory paths. They'll try and do both, instead of picking one, which would just make them very weak. It's a limitation of the flavor system used in Civ for the AIs.

 

[Txurce]

The only remaining victory type is Science, so I gave Darius the "expansionist" personality.

In contrast England works very well for conquest. Longbows, naval power, and the prod/gold from Steam Mills are all well suited for a domination victory.

It's not possible to make an AI favor both military and non-military victories. They'll try and do both, instead of picking one, which would just make them very weak.

I didn't realize that the non-conquest alternative was "expansionist." This fits Persia, in my opinion, and still leaves them capable of warring effectively on occasion.

I completely agree that England is made for war. Too bad the AI can't ever win a game doing this. I wonder what made England so successful as a Science civ? One thing I noticed was that it often has a huge population.

Thanks for the explanation regarding the AI's inability to favor a military or non-military victory equally (and make an in-game choice to go for one or the other).

 

[Thalassicus]

There's four personality types I focus AIs on, charted in the Balancing Personalities thread.

 

[Txurce]

There's four personality types I focus AIs on, charted in the Balancing Personalities thread.

Oh, yeah!

I would never have guessed that Hiawatha is Cultural (Expansionist) or, to a lesser degree, that Suleiman or Washington are Expansionist (Conqueror) or Wu Zetian Coalition (just as often Cultural).

 

[Thalassicus]

Some of them are based on real-life factors, and I also try to keep about equal numbers of each personality type.

 

[Txurce]

Some of them are based on real-life factors, and I also try to keep about equal numbers of each personality type.

That makes sense. If I wasn't clear, I meant that in my games they play as if they're different types.

 

[Thalassicus]

AI strategies depend on a number of things; personality is just one of them.

 

[Txurce]

I like the Survivalism changes.

Hiawatha does seem like more of a cultural type than Pachacuti, but I'm always interested in the motivation for these changes, if you have the time.

When you say "unit supply," do you mean the mechanic that sometimes penalizes Germany early in the game? If so, great change - now I can keep unlimited slavers!

 

[Thalassicus]

Compare the bonuses:

Pachacuti

• Movement
• Food
• Archers

Hiawatha

• Movement
• Production
• Swordsman

Growth and ranged units are somewhat better for peaceful tall empires, while production and swordsmen are somewhat better for expansionists.

Yes, the thing that mainly just affected Bismark is unit supply. The only possible purpose of it is to avoid map clogging, which only makes sense to apply to military land units.

 

[Txurce]

Compare the bonuses:

Pachacuti

• Movement
• Food
• Archers

Hiawatha

• Movement
• Production
• Swordsman

Growth and ranged units are somewhat better for peaceful tall empires, while production and swordsmen are somewhat better for expansionists.

That amkes sense. I thought Hiawatha was already an expansionist, and I thought you moved him to Cultural - that's what threw me off.

 

[Thalassicus]

The chart I linked shows their current positions... Hiawatha used to be small-empire peaceful. I had him there because I did it before most of the DLCs were released, so I didn't have as many options for peaceful leaders.

 

[Txurce]

The chart I linked shows their current positions... Hiawatha used to be small-empire peaceful.

I see.

That's interesting - Hiawatha definitely seemed small-empire peaceful in my games, but often became a late-game powerhouse.

 

[Txurce]

I'm still playing with 7.2.6 - warmongering takes a long time! - but I like every one of the changes you made in beta 8.

 

[Txurce]

All of the changes work for me on paper, and some of them seem particularly well thought out. Specifically:

• Increasing the purchase costs of buildings, seriously increasing unit maintenance, and nerfing Mercantilism will all help to reduce the sort of late-game gold build-up I've been having with SOW. I really like how you did it behind the scenes, so to speak.

• The barb nerf seems modest enough to not cause an outbreak of barb massacres on the higher levels.

• Lowering the AI preference for siege units is a worthwhile experiment, and Militia upgrading to Musketmen makes more RL sense than to Lancers.

• The explanation for the shift in the Foreign Legion sold me completely. Wow!

• The balancing of Spain's SA makes a lot of sense.

• More resource deposits makes the game more interesting. Being able to spot them is very convenient.

My only question is about 2% of combined gold as per-turn income for OB. Some AI are obscenely rich after a short amount of time. A builder could have OB's with everyone on the map. Wouldn't that be crazy high income?

 

[Thalassicus]

In the high range my income in the renaissance is around 400/turn (income, not profit=income-expenses). If we have four allies with the same amount of income we get (400*5*0.02) = 40/turn. This is +10% income, about the same as Spoils of War, and should offset the increase in purchase costs for peaceful players.

To put it another way...

Peaceful players can get +10% income by signing open borders with lots of people.
Warlike players can get +10% income through killing stuff with Spoils of War.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I can't wait to try that out, as I've always missed the financial benefit of open borders from Civ4. This mod is really starting to put together some amazing rewards for peaceful empires, especially smaller ones, which is an extremely good thing IMO.

 

[Txurce]

In the high range my income in the renaissance is around 400/turn (income, not profit=income-expenses). If we have four allies with the same amount of income we get (400*5*0.02) = 40/turn. This is +10% income, about the same as Spoils of War, and should offset the increase in purchase costs for peaceful players.

To put it another way...

Peaceful players can get +10% income by signing open borders with lots of people.
Warlike players can get +10% income through killing stuff with Spoils of War.

This will be unusually interesting to see how it works in practice. You based it on the high end of your income, which might be atypically high. Second, we aren't talking about allies, but simple OB agreements. It wouldn't be unusual to have more than 4. Finally, peaceful players tend to have fewer purchase costs in their fewer cities. My prediction is that this will lead to a net gain for the peaceful approach, where one wasn't needed.

To be clear, I think that the peaceful player should potentially be more profitable than the warmongering one. But my preference would be to reduce the warmongering income further, rather than raise the amount of gold in the game.

 

[SlightlyMad]

If it's too much, then it could potentially be dropped down to 1%, but let's try it and find out!

 

[Txurce]

If it's too much, then it could potentially be dropped down to 1%, but let's try it and find out!

Exactly my feelings.