C2C Balance Thread

[JosEPh_II]

It's a matter of the "learning curve". Trying to figure out what goes best against various units. It made for some serious setbacks at 1st. I lost 6 border cities before I started to rebound. And I'm just now to the point where I've refounded 3 of them and had enough Promo'ed up units to hold them. I've never had stacks of 20+ units before, but I do now! And the AI is relentless, wave after wave of SoDs. But I've held on long enough that his SoDs are being matched.

It's more of a challenge yes.

At 1st I thought they were a bit overboard. Again Learning curve. My only concern for the long run is do we now have too many? And only by playing thru several games well into the Ind Era will the consensus on this reach a conclusion/decision.

JosEPh

 

[Hydromancerx]

@JosEPh_II

Well if they are too powerful we can always make the promotions harder to get by moving them up to require Combat IV, V or even VI.

 

[ls612]

@JosEPh II: (and for that matter anyone else who plays Epic)

I have just committed my new Epic Gamespeed setup. Currently no gameplay factors, except for inflationdelay, have been changed, the only thing is that now the Turn Length (in years or months) scaling will look more like the Snail and Eternity gamespeeds.

The new setup has 3032 turns and ends in the year 2100 AD, same as every other gamespeed. Feedback, both on the date progression and on what modifiers need adjustment, is most appreciated.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@JosEPh_II

Well if they are too powerful we can always make the promotions harder to get by moving them up to require Combat IV, V or even VI.

Well the promotion changes came mid game to My game like the Crime changes did. So I had some serious scrambling to do. But unlike the Crime changes it didn't break this game. Just caused me to be Much Much more selective on when, where and how to attack and defend. Again a learning curve to get used to.

@Is612,
Will these Epic speed changes take hold in a current game? Or will a new game be required to see the effects?

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

Well the promotion changes came mid game to My game like the Crime changes did. So I had some serious scrambling to do. But unlike the Crime changes it didn't break this game. Just caused me to be Much Much more selective on when, where and how to attack and defend. Again a learning curve to get used to.

@Is612,
Will these Epic speed changes take hold in a current game? Or will a new game be required to see the effects?

JosEPh

It should take effect when you do a modifier recalc.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Is612
I updated my SVN tonight to revision 2350 and I went from 1926AD to the next turn being 1079BC. I don't think that's what you had in mind.

JosEPh

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Is612
I updated my SVN tonight to revision 2350 and I went from 1926AD to the next turn being 1079BC. I don't think that's what you had in mind.

JosEPh

You must have discovered Time Travel tech.

 

[Sgtslick]

2000 research per turn is pretty low.

FARMS v COTTAGES balanced?

I think farms are probably a little too powerful, perhaps they should have a -1 commerce or take off a food or two, thoughts?

 

[Koshling]

2000 research per turn is pretty low.

FARMS v COTTAGES balanced?

I think farms are probably a little too powerful, perhaps they should have a -1 commerce or take off a food or two, thoughts?

There's a whole other thread on this. Cottage line needs to improve with tech the way farsm do. Maybe even MOVE some of the improvements from farm to cottage (not sure if that makes sense but the commerce ones may do)

 

[BlueGenie]

I think the thread is lost somewhere inside another thread. At least I can't find it.

Cheers

 

[Koshling]

I think the thread is lost somewhere inside another thread. At least I can't find it.

Cheers

Ok you could be right. Posts here would be reasonable then. Simple suggestions for extra cottage benefits with techs for now only please (because they are easy to do). Moving with-tech benefits from farm to cottage also acceptable as suggestions - just want to restrict it to XML changes only for now, because we already have a ton to do on more substantive mechanics work.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I have made a suggestion on cottages else where and was going to start on it tomorrow. In fact I was going to go through all the improvements since many are now obsolete/duplicates since the reveal and enable places for the plant resources has changed.

What I will be doing first up is

• Merge the map resources into the core files.
• Merge the duplicate gather/pick/orchard improvements where possible. (And fix the buttons for some of them.)
• Fix the problem with resin that was reported in the bug thread.
• Add a new cottage "Homesteads" at the beginning of the cottage line moving the values up one and giving new values to the top of the line.

Other suggestions welcome.

 

[Sgtslick]

There are a number of techs that give +1 food to farms, perhaps construction, engineering, city planning (off the top of my head) could give +1 [something] to cottages. They definately need a +1 food somewhere relatively early, then perhaps a +1 hammer or +1 commerce aswell (with particular techs). If you don't want to nerf farms then having 7-9 food for farms compared to 2 or 3 food for cottages, you'd be an idiot to build cottages early on. In my opinion cottages are not good until you can build cannery and stuff in industrial era giving you a huge food boost, then you can start towards getting towns in grassland squares. Anywhere else i still prefer factories/watermills.
Cottages are particularly bad because alot of your commerce comes from trade in this game, so getting cottages at the expense of growth is really bad tactic.
So i think they need a +1 food with construction and +1 hammer with engineering or something similar and that'd be balanced.

Also I think windmills could use another +1 food, mines just sh1t all over them, especially on peaks. Having 1 food 3 hammers 3 commerce or 10 hammers 1 commerce - The 10 hammers is the clear winner.

 

[BlueGenie]

And a few + from some techs and + like the JC's get from roads.

Cheers

 

[Koshling]

The key balancing point for cottages needs to be that they are worse than farsm (at any given tech level) in their early forms, but better in their late (town+) forms - i.e. - that you need to invest (and take the pillage risk) to realise the gain (which if you manage to have them evolve up without ever being pillaged should eventually be substantial).

 

[ls612]

@Is612
I updated my SVN tonight to revision 2350 and I went from 1926AD to the next turn being 1079BC. I don't think that's what you had in mind.

JosEPh

OK, that means that I'll need to implement part 2 of my planned changes, which involve slowing down the tech and building progression a good bit.

Currently, for instance, the iresearchpercent for Epic is 150, and for Snail that same number is 900. That is a ratio of 1:6, even though the ratio of turns is 4:10 (approximately). This means that the iresearchpercent should be ~350, for starters.

I'll commit these changes later today, I'll try not to slow things down too much, but it definitely needs work.

 

[JosEPh_II]

If you slow the research down then I'm gonna be researching Caravels in the Ren Era?

I'm currently In the Ren Era at 1926AD (pre last update) and I've just gotten Frigates and Hvy Cannon. Something doesn't seem right. Or is it that with the changes I'll see a shift in game years vs Eras? Up to this update the tech progression aligned very well with game years thru the Medieval Era. But once I hit Ren Era the game years outpaced research rate. That is the problem as far as I can see.

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

If you slow the research down then I'm gonna be researching Caravels in the Ren Era?

I'm currently In the Ren Era at 1926AD (pre last update) and I've just gotten Frigates and Hvy Cannon. Something doesn't seem right. Or is it that with the changes I'll see a shift in game years vs Eras? Up to this update the tech progression aligned very well with game years thru the Medieval Era. But once I hit Ren Era the game years outpaced research rate. That is the problem as far as I can see.

JosEPh

Not for this game, your existing research will still remain. It is a cosmetic issue, so if you don't mind it you can still continue to play this game with no actual balance or gameplay problems.

But, in answer to your original question, yes that is the goal. It is a lot harder than it looks to get all these numbers right.

 

[JosEPh_II]

But, in answer to your original question, yes that is the goal.

So I won't be researching Caravels late Med Era but actually in the Ren Era. But the tech rate for Ren. and Industrial Era means that I won't be getting Riflemen until 2000AD unless these number changes reduce the game years/turn in these Eras. I have not hit Modern Era but once in the last 5 versions. I've forgotten what an M60 Tank looks like. And I have not seen a jet in any C2C game since version 14 or 15 (when DH 1st put leviathans in the sea and ppl started crying over them, I loved them though).

Well I guess a new game is in order to see how this all plays out.

I Do appreciate your efforts here Is612.

JosEPh

 

[BlueGenie]

*ponders*
@ls, you are counting with that it takes a bunch of extra turns to get things going in slower speeds, right?
Basically it means that research rates and production rates should be slightly faster on faster speeds to compensate.
I was wondering why my games, on Eternity, were ahead of their time with technologies until considering Joseph's technology timing and the difference game speeds actually have.
In short there's 2 reasons for taking longer to get things going;
1. the subduing animals for Myths and Herds and Feather Worker,and other animal buildings, both from land and sea animals. Faster speeds don't get them faster than longer speeds. If it takes me 50 turns to find and subdue 20 different kind of animals for animal buildings then it should take Joseph 11 turns to do the same to have the same growth and get things going at the same rate as I do. Less turns needed for him if considering moving them from nearest city to the city that's going to use them as it takes an equal amount of turns for him to move his animals from one city to another as it does for me, but that time is 4.5x more actual time passed for him.
2. Once a settler is built it takes 4.5x longer time in years for Joseph to settle a new city than it does for me. If it's an 8 turn path for me then Joseph would be losing 6 turns of extra income/growth/trade routes income, and so on, compared to me as I'd also have 8 turns to move and settle, but those 8 turns would be equal to 2 turns game time for him.

That must be the hardest thing to compensate for really but if you want the time lines to be closer to match up you might need to consider those extra turns it takes him to get cities and animal buildings going.

Cheers