I'd rather the modders and core play testers tried it out a bit first ideally.
C2C Balance Thread
- Thread starter ls612
- Start date
I'd rather the modders and core play testers tried it out a bit first ideally.
Well, now it is being tested by all of the SVN users, which is mostly modders and core playtesters.
Johnny Canuck
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2010
- Messages
- 146
It's true I don't tend to build a huge army - my standard defence for a city is three units - but I never hurry production. One thing I do do is focus on production buildings first, so that I can build everything else faster. I especially make sure the first two buildings are Rock Gatherer and Stone Tools Workshop, so I can get everything else built quicker.
FWIW, I don't personally think a +25% increase in tech rates is needed - my issue is that build costs are too cheap in relation to tech rates. If you want to increase the tech rate by 25%, I'd suggest an additional increase in base build costs, perhaps to 40%.
rightfuture
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 1,649
I think a great idea would be to balance the game to make there a small chance of winning(or losing) in any era, through a great strategy by a civ (blitzkrieg) or rarely even luck. So that a good number of games allow for further progression and hope to reach the future.
Slight variations to gameplay, game to game, could allow the struggle to continue to later times. The golden age, wonders, and playing flexible difficulty, do this to a small degree, but could be made more significant. Strategy bonuses, era events (like your civilization surges ahead), varying choices in tech paths, could diversify era gaming styles for civilizations, and give them a chance to keep you challenged, shorter or longer.
I think that different eras could also play slightly differently, from culture, technology, and mindset/motivations, differences to strategy in warfare. I think diplomacy, exploration, culture, war, and motivations, should be different in each era. Science in the modern age, War in the classical. Culture dominance in the Medieval, Production in the industrial, Commercial and early science in the renaissance, Exploration in the Age of Columbus, Colonization and religious Conversion later on. Technology in the Modern era, Computerization in the Digital Age, Robotic for Cyber, etc. Every era could have features made that eliminate potential boredom by giving character in gameplay. (gurps roleplaying books for specific eras and themes, give interesting ideas beyond just adding units, and techs and the fight being a linear numbers game.) Think knights in chess being able to move in a non-linear formation.
The future eras should transition from a plausible, yet fun near-future gameplay, continuing a worldwide struggle, from slowly implementing speculative ideas coming from early sci-fi, to starting to build the future 21st century - near-future transition, to transhuman/cyber changing things faster and faster so that we know we are no longer living in the modern age, and past that to galactic exploration.
If Civ 4 and C2C are explorations of alternate, and changing real history what-if's, then each age should be playable by itself, with interesting, and exciting era-based gameplay strategy. Choose to be a vital part playing existing history, play your own civ from prehistoric times to the far future, or rewrite history completely, or live in alternate earth where things were discovered completely differently or out of sequence, aliens came to earth early, prehistoric animals lived to modern times, computers were never discovered, cars built earlier, or clockwork machinery, steam technology, or electricity was developed in a different era. Imagine a steampunk victorian age, a classic era where they discovered the new world, or the Apollo Space program actually continuing and building a moon colony or onto Mars before the turn of the century.
Slight variations to gameplay, game to game, could allow the struggle to continue to later times. The golden age, wonders, and playing flexible difficulty, do this to a small degree, but could be made more significant. Strategy bonuses, era events (like your civilization surges ahead), varying choices in tech paths, could diversify era gaming styles for civilizations, and give them a chance to keep you challenged, shorter or longer.
I think that different eras could also play slightly differently, from culture, technology, and mindset/motivations, differences to strategy in warfare. I think diplomacy, exploration, culture, war, and motivations, should be different in each era. Science in the modern age, War in the classical. Culture dominance in the Medieval, Production in the industrial, Commercial and early science in the renaissance, Exploration in the Age of Columbus, Colonization and religious Conversion later on. Technology in the Modern era, Computerization in the Digital Age, Robotic for Cyber, etc. Every era could have features made that eliminate potential boredom by giving character in gameplay. (gurps roleplaying books for specific eras and themes, give interesting ideas beyond just adding units, and techs and the fight being a linear numbers game.) Think knights in chess being able to move in a non-linear formation.
The future eras should transition from a plausible, yet fun near-future gameplay, continuing a worldwide struggle, from slowly implementing speculative ideas coming from early sci-fi, to starting to build the future 21st century - near-future transition, to transhuman/cyber changing things faster and faster so that we know we are no longer living in the modern age, and past that to galactic exploration.
If Civ 4 and C2C are explorations of alternate, and changing real history what-if's, then each age should be playable by itself, with interesting, and exciting era-based gameplay strategy. Choose to be a vital part playing existing history, play your own civ from prehistoric times to the far future, or rewrite history completely, or live in alternate earth where things were discovered completely differently or out of sequence, aliens came to earth early, prehistoric animals lived to modern times, computers were never discovered, cars built earlier, or clockwork machinery, steam technology, or electricity was developed in a different era. Imagine a steampunk victorian age, a classic era where they discovered the new world, or the Apollo Space program actually continuing and building a moon colony or onto Mars before the turn of the century.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
@rightfuture
Well there use to be dark age feature in RoM/AND. If you empire lost momentum such as no expanding cities, not buildings wonders, etc it would fall into a dark age. I am not sure if the code is still in C2C but it might be worth revisiting and reinventing.
The alternate timeline part is already part of the game in techs like ...
- Megafauna Domestication
- Clockpunk
- Steampunk
- Dieselpunk
and ones we plan on adding ...
- Atompunk
- Biopunk
- Cyberpunk
Possibly "Sandalpunk" too.
Well there use to be dark age feature in RoM/AND. If you empire lost momentum such as no expanding cities, not buildings wonders, etc it would fall into a dark age. I am not sure if the code is still in C2C but it might be worth revisiting and reinventing.
The alternate timeline part is already part of the game in techs like ...
- Megafauna Domestication
- Clockpunk
- Steampunk
- Dieselpunk
and ones we plan on adding ...
- Atompunk
- Biopunk
- Cyberpunk
Possibly "Sandalpunk" too.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
There has been the idea of a "Bad Karma" mod which contains bad stuff like dark ages, "War of the Worlds" invasions and the like. For people who want a bit more of a challenge.
The only issue with that is that it would most likely disadvantage the AI more than the human player, and we really don't need that.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Not if it is only Bad Karma on the players
. For instance I a planing for "The War of the Worlds" even to only happen if the player is an era ahead of everyone else in the tech race. But first I need to fix the Great Wall.
An easy way to see its effect is after its switched on, look at the change in income per turn. I was playing deity with around 30 cities in early renaissance i think when i first tried it and it resulted in -$300. Which was the equivalent of 5% of my science slider. So i had to drop from 70% to 65% science if I recall correctly.
In my new game my economy is struggling due to me having expanded rapidly (imperialistic trait) trying to box in france whose sharing my continent. I've got 16 cities late ancient deity, and Im running 10% science but 2 or 3 of my cities have to build wealth. So things are looking good on the gold balance front
An easy way to see its effect is after its switched on, look at the change in income per turn. I was playing deity with around 30 cities in early renaissance i think when i first tried it and it resulted in -$300. Which was the equivalent of 5% of my science slider. So i had to drop from 70% to 65% science if I recall correctly.
In my new game my economy is struggling due to me having expanded rapidly (imperialistic trait) trying to box in france whose sharing my continent. I've got 16 cities late ancient deity, and Im running 10% science but 2 or 3 of my cities have to build wealth. So things are looking good on the gold balance front
OMG, You are saying that gold balance is good and JosEPh is saying there may be a surplus?!?! What has the world come to?
I made a mistake it was actually early ancient, not late. And now that im in late ancient. I haven't expanded any more, i've traded quite a few nice techs, have built a few wonders and my workers have been busy little bees. Cut to the chase> im back to 100% science and running a profit $_$ but before koshlings change, i could have done all this without dropping the slider at all. And in this game i describe, my army is less than 1/10th of the leaders, to give you an idea. All I have been doing is whoring all the +$$$ buildings over past 50 turns, literally 0 units.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
Someone needs to come knocking at your door with a SoD! 
Actually ls612 I've mentioned at least 3 times in the last week that gold is more abundant in this version. And I keep pointing to the "New housing lines" (you can now build everyone of them and get goodies). Heck in one of my games I just built Bone Huts in my Capital city in the Med Era for +3 hammer and 3+Gold. Just like Pacal says, Gimmee Gimmee! More More!
JosEPh
Actually ls612 I've mentioned at least 3 times in the last week that gold is more abundant in this version. And I keep pointing to the "New housing lines" (you can now build everyone of them and get goodies). Heck in one of my games I just built Bone Huts in my Capital city in the Med Era for +3 hammer and 3+Gold. Just like Pacal says, Gimmee Gimmee! More More!
JosEPh
Man chariots are super powerful now. What changed? Was it always +100% vs melee? 6 strength and starts with +25% withdrawal. WOW thats so stong, wth is suppose to beat this? Unless u have elephants your kinda screwed. Maybe skirmishers I suppose.. All the AI chariots in my game have 60% withdrawal and they like never die.
I suggest that we should give chariots a penalty to attack in some terrains:
forest: -50%
jungle: -75%
marsh: -50%
You get the idea - places where fast ancient wheeled vehicles don't really operate well.
Someone needs to come knocking at your door with a SoD!
Actually ls612 I've mentioned at least 3 times in the last week that gold is more abundant in this version. And I keep pointing to the "New housing lines" (you can now build everyone of them and get goodies). Heck in one of my games I just built Bone Huts in my Capital city in the Med Era for +3 hammer and 3+Gold. Just like Pacal says, Gimmee Gimmee! More More!
JosEPh
Not anymore!
Hydro must have read this post and decided to make your 
situation miserable again. @All: I've basically determined that my new Gamespeed changes don't break anything horribly, but I'm not going to commit them until the Freeze, as I don't want to make people feel like they need to start a new game. Thanks as always for the feedback.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
Guess I better not update my SVN copy for a bit then. 
JosEPh
JosEPh
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
Not anymore!
I changed it before I read it. Its just a happy coincidence.
They were 100% vs Axemen. No one ever built them so I made it all melee units. Now they are worth building. The best units to counter the chariots are ...
- Javelineer / Early Skirmisher (25% vs Mounted Units)
- Spearman / Pikeman (50% vs Mounted Units)
- Elephants / Mammoths (50% vs Mounted)
- Camels (50% vs Mounted)
- Cheyenne Rider / Comanche Horse Archer (25% vs Mounted)
- Lighting Warrior (50% vs Mounted)
- Phalanx (100% vs Chariots)
You can't use spearman/pikemen they get thrashed coz chariots get +100% vs melee, Give them +100% or +75% to mounted would be nice at the moment my pikemen gotta run away. Everything below pikeman you listed, I can't build. So only early skirmishers really.
Oh and can you remove the new traits from civs in the svn until they get sorted properly, like I said in the trait thread, they are completely unbalanced and some civs even have 3 positive traits like mao and stalin, and all the hunter gatherer civs are garbage coz of it.
at the moment my pikemen gotta run away. Everything below pikeman you listed, I can't build. So only early skirmishers really.Oh and can you remove the new traits from civs in the svn until they get sorted properly, like I said in the trait thread, they are completely unbalanced and some civs even have 3 positive traits like mao and stalin, and all the hunter gatherer civs are garbage coz of it.
i saw AI have 50 guard units in and around there capital. With not one police promotion. Besides this tho 50 is a joke. He had 50+ of them and like 30+ archers 20+ war dogs. Its stupid how the AI places sooooo many units around a city that is usually in the centre of there empire. They need to place way less emphasis on this and much more emphasis on there border cities. Also what is the point of building 50+ guard units, they can't attack and cost $$ per turn, 2 or 3 they should build at most. Can you cap how many they build per city?
Another thing I have never once seen AI use seige units against one of my stacks. If they see a stack of units inside there territory- they should build up some seige units to attack it in one turn together with a stack of there own. Without this tactic the AI are retards in war. Like even when im about to capture a crucial AI city they never rearrange city defences. They never pull for example 10% of all city defending units to go towards a city that is under threat. The AI should consider something like 20% of there city defence units as a 'mobile' defence team. If they feel a certain city or certain cities plural are under threat, this 'mobile' defence team should mobilize.
This 'feel under threat' should be defined simply by which cities have the highest concentration of nearby rival units/cities. (Overseas excluded). So if they are sharing a continent with me and they are on the right hand side of the continent, I am on the left, (which was the case in my current game). It is idiotic for them to have the highest concentration of units and defenders on the right side of there empire (which they did). What is the point of defending there last cities with a heap of troops if 70% of there other cities are already dead.
Another thing, the AI builds LOTS of navy but never uses them offensively. They should be guarding there borders during peace, and during war they should be actively out in enemy territory with 95% of there fleet, bombarding/destroying fishing boats/blockading.
Oh and one more point, during war the AI should be very very reluctant to go into anarchy. Unless the war is going very well for them they should not consider going into a 4+ turn anarchy, since it might cost them the game.
Another thing I have never once seen AI use seige units against one of my stacks. If they see a stack of units inside there territory- they should build up some seige units to attack it in one turn together with a stack of there own. Without this tactic the AI are retards in war. Like even when im about to capture a crucial AI city they never rearrange city defences. They never pull for example 10% of all city defending units to go towards a city that is under threat. The AI should consider something like 20% of there city defence units as a 'mobile' defence team. If they feel a certain city or certain cities plural are under threat, this 'mobile' defence team should mobilize.
This 'feel under threat' should be defined simply by which cities have the highest concentration of nearby rival units/cities. (Overseas excluded). So if they are sharing a continent with me and they are on the right hand side of the continent, I am on the left, (which was the case in my current game). It is idiotic for them to have the highest concentration of units and defenders on the right side of there empire (which they did). What is the point of defending there last cities with a heap of troops if 70% of there other cities are already dead.
Another thing, the AI builds LOTS of navy but never uses them offensively. They should be guarding there borders during peace, and during war they should be actively out in enemy territory with 95% of there fleet, bombarding/destroying fishing boats/blockading.
Oh and one more point, during war the AI should be very very reluctant to go into anarchy. Unless the war is going very well for them they should not consider going into a 4+ turn anarchy, since it might cost them the game.
If you check out the AI category on the issue tracker system you'll se that I have started entering AI enhancements, beginning with the high priority ones I want to start with when I get time to work on the AI again. This one is already there.
Agreed. Currently the AI only uses bombardment of any sort against cities really. It's definately an area that needs work. When you have points as concrete and specific as this please enter them directly under the AI category on the issue tracker system, and I'll try to pick them up from there (or at least to prioritise them so you'll have an idea of whee I am with things generally)
IMO that's slightly over-simplistic (and actually is what it does now, though its look-out radius is laughably small), mostly because it typically doesn't have visibility to uni concentrations inside your territory when you are massing. However, I DO have my own ideas to improve the threat-level evaluation, of which visible unit density is certainly a component, and it is something I am actively planning to do fairly quickly once I am able to get back to AI work
Fair points. Enter them in the issue tracker please. As a general rule if you have a specific and self-contained observation/suggestion (like the individual paragraphs above) check whetehr they are already listed in the AI section of the issue tracker, and if not (or it's not immediately obvious after a brief scan) add new ones.
