C2C Balance Thread

[JosEPh_II]

Great empires tended to have many large economic centres. At the moment it is possible to have one great city and many tiny outposts without worrying about maintenance. In fact, this is what happens in most of my games, after tribalism. I think it would be good to increase maintenance, especially at higher difficulty levels. So instead of having a size 13 city and twelve sized 1 or 2, you would need to have several well developed cities to support that kind of empire. So large empires would be possible, but would require a much stronger economic base than they do at the moment.

@TC,
My empires never ever have 1 large city and then all the rest 1 or 2 pop sized. It just doesn't happen that way in my games. So I don't see what you say is happening. In fact my cities are like stair steps in size. The earliest and most resourced are obviously the largest. In fact I have had 2nd and 3rd built cities become larger than my Capitol by end of Classical and start of Medieval.

@Sgtslick.
I glad you're experiencing an Epic game more in line with what I've had over the past year.

I will say this about the V23 and pre v24 SVN. With the changes to the housing line I can afford to build more Research buildings than before this building chain was updated. But I still do Not build a library or school of scribes in every city like I've always done before v22. Even with Hydro's acquiescence to my request to reduce the Cost by 1 gold, they are still "mainly" too costly for my liking. Getting 3 research for -3.51 gold is hard to swallow in my book for a Mathematics Academy. And getting only 5 research for a library but paying -10.23 gold is out of the question. I'll forgo the Library till the modifiers to the "costs" bring it back down to almost a 1 for 1 ratio ( ie 5 research for -6 or -7 gold). And it does happen from time to time. A city that has no library in Classical may be able to afford one by late Medieval or Ren Era. But not every city can afford this either. And Universities are only a handful (5 or less) now in a 25 city empire.

The Sanitation line also has this problem for me. Too much cost (-gold) for too little +health (2 or 3 health for -7 to -10 gold, I won't pay it till I am Forced to do so by a city going all faced)

JosEPh

 

[Sgtslick]

Sewer systems allow you to build other good stuff and with public works my +50% build time is too juicy to resist. Aqueducts i rarely build tho unless I really want that bathhouse and need the +health. Generally speaking tho taking away -gold on libraries etc sounds fine, however you need to increase maintenance or something so to even it out a bit, $ is still too easy imo.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I do realize that, but the scrooge in me says "not happening until I have to".

I'm only gonna say this once cause if I say it twice the modders here will think I'm sick. $ is easier this pre24 version. I actually have a treasury (~ 11K) that will let me do major updates to my units to keep greedy neighbors at bay. Been a long long time since I've had this size a treasury in the Classical / soon to be Medieval eras.

I've never been able to amass Gold like I've seen DH do. Nor have I built everything like you say you've done. And there have been times when I would have given ALL my gold to get units to build more than 1 per turn. Of course I always try to build the Best not the Cheapest units.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I do realize that, but the scrooge in me says "not happening until I have to".

I'm only gonna say this once cause if I say it twice the modders here will think I'm sick. $ is easier this pre24 version. I actually have a treasury (~ 11K) that will let me do major updates to my units to keep greedy neighbors at bay. Been a long long time since I've had this size a treasury in the Classical / soon to be Medieval eras.

I've never been able to amass Gold like I've seen DH do. Nor have I built everything like you say you've done. And there have been times when I would have given ALL my gold to get units to build more than 1 per turn. Of course I always try to build the Best not the Cheapest units.

JosEPh

The reason I amass gold is because I make sure that my games, which are for testing, are builder games. IE no neighbours that can attack me pre boat building. It usually only requires the placing of a couple of peaks or tar pits to block off land asults. I've had to double the animal spawn rate too.

 

[T C]

@TC,
My empires never ever have 1 large city and then all the rest 1 or 2 pop sized. It just doesn't happen that way in my games. So I don't see what you say is happening. In fact my cities are like stair steps in size. The earliest and most resourced are obviously the largest. In fact I have had 2nd and 3rd built cities become larger than my Capitol by end of Classical and start of Medieval.

I'm talking about the end of prehistoric/start of ancient. I have my capital non-stop producing tribes/settlers during this period. Obviously once you develop Caste System and Agriculture, cities start to grow faster and can really develop by the end of the ancient era. I think the gap between these two periods probably seems longer to me than you because we play on different speeds.

 

[JosEPh_II]

IE no neighbours that can attack me pre boat building.

My Archipelago or Island games are basically like that. Have to have boats to intrude. And as I've said before I truly believe this type set up allows the AI a good chance to grow and develop and be a strong opponent later in the game. No early rushes can occur.

JosEPh

Edit: @ TC,
Once I have Tribes I build 2 or 3 units for escort duty from my capitol and then the Tribe. Obviously this slows my building of tribes, But by Sed Life and Settlers the other cities closest to the area I want to place a new city in build the escorts while the Capitol builds the settler. And when that #2 and #3 cities can build a settler in a decent amount of turns usually 6 or less) they take up the settler burden and then I can improve the Capitol with several buildings/units before i build another settler in it.

Game speeds definitely make a difference there. I've played a few marathon and 1 snail. I never did get any of those games past medieval before a new version of C2C came out. I can't even get past Medivieval or Ren on Epic before we spit out a new version!

 

[T C]

Yeah before sedentary lifestyle, I build units to escort my tribes in between building tribes. Often I will have a few units guarding sites that I really want to settle.

At the moment I'm trying an archipelago game, on a slightly smaller map, on immortal. It's been a different experience or sure. Fewer animals and a slightly slower game with much less military action. The AI is terrible at fighting naval wars and attacking overseas cities.

As for the gold situation, well let's put it this way, I'm in the classical period and have 55k.

I actually had a few cities become unhealthy, I even had to think about not building buildings.

For ls612: Sedentary Lifestyle at around 11,700BC (AI around 14,000BC), classical at 7,700BC.

 

[Sgtslick]

In my current game I had size 9 capital and about 20 size 1 cities
Thing is im sharing a continent with carthage and when I built my 2nd city she was already on 6 and I saw had two tribes hovering near her border, this was ALARM bells.. I spammed those tribes hardcore and most of the time they weren't escorted etc. I neat little trick/exploit I used was to keep putting units near her tribes (even tho we weren't at war she would kinda back them up to come from a different angle and this gave me the time to hem her in a bit. At the moment I have 27 cities I think to her 12. So it worked out well. Im researching Paper and am running like 70% science getting 4000 beakers a turn and running @ about $-300 per turn - however I have like $40,000 in the bank. I usually sell every spare resource I have tho and sell most techs too. Selling Iron or Obsidian made me A LOT of money. Generally selling stuff keeps the AI happy and keeps me rollin the $_$
Also on deity the AI is pretty unfair with trades - like trading a tech for a tech, even if mine is more expensive tech they will want a grand or two as a sweetener, thats why I like to sell a lot of techs to the not so advanced civs.

Getting currency is a pretty big deal, as soon as you get currency you can sell individual contacts to the other civs while trading for other contacts too. I made probably like $10,000 doing this coz i pretty much sold every contact to everybody. At this point in the game it was a life saver coz I was at like $-250 per turn and only running like 35% science. I think at like 0% i was only making a little bit of money (say $100 at most). Its been a tough slog, once I got great lighthouse I was sailing

 

[Hydromancerx]

How are people doing now that there is Air and Water Pollution? Has the abundant health problem been balanced a bit more? Or do you guys have super healthy cities still?

What about happiness?

 

[T C]

My cities are very happy but close to the edge on health. It's brought back that aspect of the game for me, so that's great!

Sgtslick: That is exactly the kind of thing (with the tribes) I would like to see made very difficult.

 

[Sgtslick]

health is noticeable yeah. crime started to become a problem in my game actually, like i realised most of my cities were around 300 and climbing and was like oh crap, and built a guard for each city with 4 police promotions, so they're like -20 crime or something (the unit).

Plus carthage has been sneaking rogues and into my cities and sitting them there the sly b1tch. She also has been using spies way more than i've seen ai do before which is cool too.

 

[T C]

The AI isn't using unconventional warfare at all in my games. I used to have every city with trained dogs, but I don't bother these days.

edit: Almost as soon as I say that, the AI uses 3 spys and steals Democracy from me. That'll teach me to open my big mouth!

 

[ls612]

Yeah before sedentary lifestyle, I build units to escort my tribes in between building tribes. Often I will have a few units guarding sites that I really want to settle.

At the moment I'm trying an archipelago game, on a slightly smaller map, on immortal. It's been a different experience or sure. Fewer animals and a slightly slower game with much less military action. The AI is terrible at fighting naval wars and attacking overseas cities.

As for the gold situation, well let's put it this way, I'm in the classical period and have 55k.

I actually had a few cities become unhealthy, I even had to think about not building buildings.

For ls612: Sedentary Lifestyle at around 11,700BC (AI around 14,000BC), classical at 7,700BC.

What gamespeed?

On the issue of unconventional warfare, the issue is with the AI and Crime on buildings. The AI sees the building that allows thieves and rogues as having no benefit but a large downside (+crime), as it does not understand the idea that the building allows you to build crime units. The solution to this is to add some AI weight to the Bandit's hut, and I don't know if SO has done that yet. If he hasn't, I'll fix it and see if it helps at all.

 

[T C]

I always play on snail. It would be nice to see the AI using thieves and rogues again.

 

[Sgtslick]

How do you feel about worker improvement speed generally?
I thinks its good--
Except ( ) there are too many (+25% worker speed here, +25 there, +25 there etc from all the techs, then you can upgrade workers to elephant ones etc, AND you can have all the civic modifiers too!

 

[Hydromancerx]

In my current game I moved up one level from Monarch to Emperor. And I must say I am so glad I did before the game was getting too easy for me but now I am at the bottom and struggling to keep up. To anyone who thinks the game is too easy please increase your difficulty! You will see how ruthless the AI can be.

 

[ls612]

In my current game I moved up one level from Monarch to Emperor. And I must say I am so glad I did before the game was getting too easy for me but now I am at the bottom and struggling to keep up. To anyone who thinks the game is too easy please increase your difficulty! You will see how ruthless the AI can be.

Yes, I once tried playing Emperor once, and sorely regretted it as I was totally destroyed by simultaneous AI invasions from either side of my civ, as I was in the middle of a large continent. I don't know if that was a happy (for the AI) accident or intentional, but it definitely convinced me to stay at Noble.

 

[Sgtslick]

Monarch to Emperor. And I must say I am so glad I did before the game was getting too easy for me but now I am at the bottom and struggling to keep up.

As you progress through the eras you will find you have caught up. Your best bet is to just try and get a tech lead so you can grab all the wonders and by the time of renaissance you should be able to conquer neighbours. For example in my current game on deity i was 1/4 of leaders score and 1/8th of gnp but now im on par in score (within 100 points) and the leading gnp is not quite double mine but im ahead of the average gnp for sure. Im researching paper atm from memory just to give you an idea. Once you get to modern era you will find emperor to be a breeze. Thats why AI really needs to get a huge lead early and you need to be able to grab a decent chunk of your continent early so you can keep up somewhat with the number of cities, don't worry about gnp + army and stuff early on.

I find the AI doesn't build enough seige units, has this been your experience? Once I can get catapults its easy pickings, a nice stack of catapults (like 15 or something) + literally whatever other units you want and you can take down cities one after the other.

I know the AI likes to lower cities defenses, but do they realize how good collateral damage is?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Wait till you have the AI coming at you with Ribaldequin (sp?) and Falconets with 4 1st strikes + a slew of other promos! (and it did know about colat dmge back in v22 when all the new promos hit the scene) You had Better have more than 2 defenders in that city or it will be either razed or his. That's why my cities are Always well defended. The AI taught me that.

In fact this Mod has made me become more of a fighter than I ever used to be. I'm a builder by nature. That's why I fell in love with RoM. And probably one of the main reasons I dislike REV so much.

JosEPh

 

[T C]

I wish I could encounter this super aggressive AI that people keep talking about, it would make things more interesting!

I tried playing a huge map (I usually play with giant or gigantic) on snail, and...holy tech speed batman! Techs come very quickly, every 2, 3 or 4 turns. I have a fairly average start, nothing that provides a big science bounus, except for the river. I find this a little strange on snail.