"Builders" as the new Workers... now with charges.

[Wizard-Bob]

Does this do away with the ability to chop forests for resources?

 

[Felis Renidens]

I would suppose cutting the forest will come together with building the mine. Otherwise you'll need two charges for it which also isn't terrible although annoying.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Does this do away with the ability to chop forests for resources?

It might...I could see forest / jungle chopping/ marsh filling (and pillage repair) being something that builders do over time (like civV workers)

Or perhaps forest/jungle is only chopped when you put an improvement on it (and does it for no charge)... so you could "chop for resources" but the builder would use up a charge in doing so... which means it would be an investment ~70 hammers now for ~80 hammers later.

...thought of another way pillage repair might work.. Builder uses a charge to repair a tile AND all adjacent tiles (like the Great Admiral heal)

but overall we have no idea about 'terrain modification' (chopping forest) or pillage repair. [although repairing pillaged districts is probably just building the buildings again]

 

[x2Madda]

I think it's a good thing. Not because of their reasoning that it "feels strange" to have a unit around from start to finish, but because it actually makes it so workers are now an investment that doesn't create almost infinite value anymore.

It may even be the case that we will now value other things over workers although there's still stuff to improve and the timing for when we build new workers will, assuming stuff is tuned right, have a lot of potential for important decisions.

Listen Rykia, you know and I know that if builders are steal-able, our build order isn't going to change. Instead we are going to have a whipping boy AI that we camp and steal builders from over and over again, all game long

On that note, Chinese builders can fast build wonders so IF, it is unit specific (not nation specific), then China AI is going to have a very hard time, every, single, game

It might...I could see forest / jungle chopping/ marsh filling (and pillage repair) being something that builders do over time (like civV workers)

All builder projects are immediate however if chopping trees will still be an option, remains to be seen.
I hope that it is and welcome it being instant since china Wonder perk is already making China shape up to be the dominant Civ unless we downgrade wonders to Civ:be levels!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Listen Rykia, you know and I know that if builders are steal-able, our build order isn't going to change. Instead we are going to have a whipping boy AI that we camp and steal builders from over and over again, all game long

On that note, Chinese builders can fast build wonders so IF, it is unit specific (not nation specific), then China AI is going to have a very hard time, every, single, game



All builder projects are immediate however if chopping trees will still be an option, remains to be seen.
I hope that it is and welcome it being instant since china Wonder perk is already making China shape up to be the dominant Civ unless we downgrade wonders to Civ:be levels!

Well it does depend on How the workers speed it up... perhaps they move to the Wonder tile, use up a charge and adds 5 hammers (for a worker that costs 70)

So china gets 5 extra hammers per turn on Wonders... that it has to pre/different city pay for at a ~250% markup

A good bonus but not OP. (and they can tune how many hammers a charge uses)

 

[Ryika]

Listen Rykia, you know and I know that if builders are steal-able, our build order isn't going to change. Instead we are going to have a whipping boy AI that we camp and steal builders from over and over again, all game long

On that note, Chinese builders can fast build wonders so IF, it is unit specific (not nation specific), then China AI is going to have a very hard time, every, single, game

That's easy to fix. Make it so they can't be stolen anymore. Or maybe make it so that workers can be stolen but act as slaves that only ever have a maximum of one charge.

Or introduce diplomatic penalties for stealing workers.

Anything that fixes the broken mechanic is fine by me.

 

[Gorbles]

The impact of stealing Workers is still reduced, because they're on limited charges. Given the (presumed) ability to steal civilian units, this will always be the case when civilian units are tied to infrastructure. Which seems to be a par for the course for the Civilisation series

There doesn't necessarily need to be anything done for it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The impact of stealing Workers is still reduced, because they're on limited charges. Given the (presumed) ability to steal civilian units, this will always be the case when civilian units are tied to infrastructure. Which seems to be a par for the course for the Civilisation series

There doesn't necessarily need to be anything done for it.

But historically (game-wise) haven't most of the civilian units just gotten killed when you attack them? Is "stealing" a new thing? I know you can't just steal great people (except prophet for some reason). My memory is going . . .

 

[Ryika]

The impact of stealing Workers is still reduced, because they're on limited charges. Given the (presumed) ability to steal civilian units, this will always be the case when civilian units are tied to infrastructure. Which seems to be a par for the course for the Civilisation series

There doesn't necessarily need to be anything done for it.

Worker stealing was dumb in Civ 5, and even with charges it would probably still be quite bad for the game if it's still possible to abuse the AI like that. x2Madda is completely right in that it would completely take away from many of the decisions.

One could even draw the conclusion that being able to steal a constant stream of workers with charges is even MORE broken than stealing permanent workers, simply because everybody else in the world has to keep pumping production into workers while you get yours free from that neighbor that you've been bullying for 4000 years. A single worker-steal would be worth less, but the process of worker-stealing - if still possible the way it was in Civ V - would gain a lot of relative power.

 

[Seek]

As I see it, stealing builders won't be as much of a no-brainer any more since they have limited charges, and it will be much more difficult to steal them anyway, due to instant builds (not sitting around on a border for multiple turns), they can be attached to military units (less AI incompetence hopefully) and charges mean they disappear. OTOH, if early dows aren't treated so harshly an opportune situation to steal could arise occasionally.

Might be more worthwhile for China if it's a civ-trait (ie, if China gets +1 charge and wonder building capabilities).

 

[Gorbles]

Worker stealing was dumb in Civ 5, and even with charges it would probably still be quite bad for the game if it's still possible to abuse the AI like that. x2Madda is completely right in that it would completely take away from many of the decisions.

One could even draw the conclusion that being able to steal a constant stream of workers with charges is even MORE broken than stealing permanent workers, simply because everybody else in the world has to keep pumping production into workers while you get yours free from that neighbor that you've been bullying for 4000 years. A single worker-steal would be worth less, but the process of worker-stealing - if still possible the way it was in Civ V - would gain a lot of relative power.

I didn't comment on it not being a bad thing for the game, I simply said the effect would be reduced given the impact in CiV. Additionally, given insta-build times, the window of opportunity to steal Workers is vastly reduced from CiV / BE.

As for the long-term impact of Worker-stealing, it would be identical, because in CiV you'd still have to keep pumping production into Workers. There wouldn't be an improvement for the aggrieved party in this instance, but there wouldn't be a worsened situation either.

I'm simply going on the baseline here, assuming absolutely no other changes other than what we've seen. Otherwise we get into the mess of what people expect vs. what people hope for and I'd rather not be quoted in six months time if it doesn't go the way people want it to

 

[AriochIV]

One of the playthrough preview articles mentioned clearing woods, but they didn't say how.

 

[Ryika]

I didn't comment on it not being a bad thing for the game, I simply said the effect would be reduced given the impact in CiV. Additionally, given insta-build times, the window of opportunity to steal Workers is vastly reduced from CiV / BE.

Which is good, because we agree on that.

We disagree (well, 'you're wrong' ) here:

As for the long-term impact of Worker-stealing, it would be identical, because in CiV you'd still have to keep pumping production into Workers. There wouldn't be an improvement for the aggrieved party in this instance, but there wouldn't be a worsened situation either.

It wouldn't change the dynamic between the one who steals and the one who's stolen from (other than the fact that the one who steals has greater incentive to keep stealing), but it would impact the balance towards all other Civs. As I already said, those who aren't involved at all have to constantly produce new workers, which will make the difference between a Civ that is not involved and a Civ that constantly manages to steal bigger.

Of course you're right however - that scenario only plays out if we assume that a player can keep stealing workers without losing anything in the process and that the player can even keep stealing workers with enough charges.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Or perhaps "civilian" units can have some minimum defense (ie it takes ~2 attacks to capture one)

Or perhaps a "stolen" civilian unit is useless (an undeletable maintenance free useless unit.. maybe it gives 'trophy' points if stationed in/adjacent to one of your cities...Aztecs get bonus 'trophy' points)...

But the original owner (or someone else) can liberate it to its original state (like settlers becoming workers when captured)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If the builders are full of building materials, maybe the unit is disbanded and you get some gold when you attack a defensless one.

Still I think I like the simplest answer in that they get killed when you attack a defenseless one.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If the builders are full of building materials, maybe the unit is disbanded and you get some gold when you attack a defensless one.

Still I think I like the simplest answer in that they get killed when you attack a defenseless one.

That would be the simplest (although getting gold would be a nice simple side effect)

 

[Nick31]

This is an interesting discussion to read through .

I still think, though, that the biggest impediment to builder-stealing will be how Beach codes the penalties. For instance, in the playthrough, Cleopatra was all "power is sexy to me" which frankly would encourage doing what you do in BNW, i.e. declare war on a CS early and keep ambushing them with scouts or horses to steal more and more workers. For Egypt, there doesn't seem to be any Diplo downside to having 6 enslaved builders... Unless Beach codes in something.

That said, if Beach has America (where Roosevelt seems to really want peace on his continent) be uber-ferocious if a CS "tells him" that you enslaved even one builder, let alone keep an active war going, maybe that's enough deterrent on high levels. Having an immediate carpet of doom descend upon you for a simply 3-build unit isn't good math (i.e. producing builders vs. producing all defensive units for many turns).

Also, it'd be especially fun if CVI has a code whereby a CS will give Ally status to another civ (AI or human) that goes on a revenge quest! Not a simple gift a unit or denounce, but a full on pillage and destruction quest .

Basically, if Ed is as serious as he says he is to discourage CS or early AI worker abuse, there are ways to make the incentive tree more and more against the human on higher difficulty. If he implements that sort of decision matrix/calculus, that would meet his declared goal of having terrain, map, neighbors change your playstyle every playthrough.

 

[Acken]

I dont think people mind civilian to be stealable. What they mind is the ai letting them undefended or worse being able to farm them on specific tiles. I had to make the ai cheat by having vision 2 tiles outside its border to at least diminish farming potential.

 

[Ryika]

...which reminds me that I still haven't gotten around to trying out your mod.

But true, the real problem is that the AI loses them so easily, not they can be stolen at all. I actually like the idea of being able to steal them, in the ideal case it's one of many military "strategies" that make the early game more fun.

 

[Nick31]

I dont think people mind civilian to be stealable. What they mind is the ai letting them undefended or worse being able to farm them on specific tiles. I had to make the ai cheat by having vision 2 tiles outside its border to at least diminish farming potential.

Haha, I'd forgotten that. That said, Ed seems to mind in the interviews he gave, particularly in its centrality to "optimal" game play. Hence my optimism that he'll actually have real penalties.

And even AI vision doesn't change surprise steals, or steals via horse units. All human abilities, particularly if CS war generates only the faintest indifference.