C2C Balance Thread

[Sgtslick]

Its only fair since techs take a ridiculously long time, every other variation of civ4 bts has a MUCH more relatively even iconstruct/itrain compared to iresearch, except this mod which is/was totally out of balance in my opinion and im super glad Is612 is realising this. Having a 3:1 unit/building to tech cost is virtually non existent, its more like 1:1 or 1.5:1, c2c has had well over a 3:1 ratio when you include the per era reductions in tech produced.

Take eternity for example it was 750 itrain compared to 2500 research, that is a 3.3:1 ratio and that is not even taking into account the per era tech penalties. The ancient penalty to tech research is 60 - meaning the ratio was like 5.3:1 actually it was more like 5.66:1, totally disproportionate if you ask me. Now in ancient era including the tech penalty the ratio is around 2.66:1 - 2.83:1, much better.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The main reason for the units to cost less compared to research was so you could get them to the front and play with them before they go obsolete. This is one of the good things about c2c that the rest of the mods got wrong miss out on.

 

[ls612]

The main reason for the units to cost less compared to research was so you could get them to the front and play with them before they go obsolete. This is one of the good things about c2c that the rest of the mods got wrong miss out on.

You still have on Epic ~75 turns or so between upgrades, and it increases with gamespeed. Again, if there are problems, I'll look into them when I get back next week, but for now I'd like to see what actually happens ingame before we rush to judgement.

 

[Sgtslick]

You still have on Epic ~75 turns or so between upgrades, and it increases with gamespeed. Again, if there are problems, I'll look into them when I get back next week, but for now I'd like to see what actually happens ingame before we rush to judgement.

Yes this, remember too that only a small percentage of new techs actually unlock new or better units.

 

[JosEPh_II]

You still have on Epic ~75 turns or so between upgrades, and it increases with gamespeed. Again, if there are problems, I'll look into them when I get back next week, but for now I'd like to see what actually happens ingame before we rush to judgement.

JosEPh

 

[BlueGenie]

This is some of my opinion on the matter and i've been editing the xml for a few months coz I think its out been out of balance.

Spoiler :

I typically play marathon with the tech rate accelerated and iconstruct/itrain increased.

All right, I'm not sure I get this at all. Research accelerated and building/train time increased, doesn't that mean you get new units even faster?

But to clarify our/my point of view: We enjoy longer times with the same units, not the same times with those units, and thus play on Snail/Eternity for that reason as it has/had longer time to enjoy those units while being able to actually build and use them for that period of time.
If we had longer train times we would not/will not have as many turns to enjoy the war/hunt/fighting with those units as it would take forever to build the units and even more so the armies needed for our enjoyment.
In the end it is a game and should be enjoyed in the way we want to enjoy it.
Finally I'd like to point out that if you play on Marathon I'm uncertain to as how you can comment on the game-play feel on longer speeds. Of course I don't know how much or how often you've had games on Snail/Eternity.

Cheers

 

[ls612]

@All:

OK, I reduced the iTrain by 25%, making it halfway between what it was before and what it was yesterday. This should be more moderate of an increase. Feedback on this would be useful, as then we can see whether or not these changes are good or whether they should be increased/decreased some more.

This is likely to be my last commit before leaving on vacation, so any game-breaking bugs in my stuff should be fixed for me while I'm gone.

 

[Flinx]

I play with eternity speed for reasons already mentioned: more time to get the best experience with my units before they get obsolete.
But research times of 40 to 60 turns in ancient times seem to be a tad off.
I know the speed is called eternity but it would be nice if this is not taken literally.

 

[ls612]

@Flinx: what do you expect, the whole game on Eternity is 14400 turns (or so). Ancient alone is supposed to take 1800 turns. It's called Eternity for a reason!

 

[Flinx]

Of course it is eternity.

But you'd see that turn times as i described may lead to the problem of not finishing the tech tree even if you use all of the 14305 turns provided.
With 540 techs around (+/- a few) and an average turn time of 30 to research a tech you'd miss some techs for sure.

 

[AIAndy]

Of course it is eternity.

But you'd see that turn times as i described may lead to the problem of not finishing the tech tree even if you use all of the 14305 turns provided.
With 540 techs around (+/- a few) and an average turn time of 30 to research a tech you'd miss some techs for sure.

540 techs in 14305 turns means an average of 26.5 turns. Not that far away from 30.

 

[Flinx]

Well, maybe turn times get down in later eras, i will have a look at it.

 

[BlueGenie]

It does. Very much.
Again my example includes Slavery used fully so might not be a correct indication on how games usually progress as I can build things faster and thus spend more time with conduction research in my cities.
In my current game I am 2000 of the 14305 turns into the game in roughly 5500BC. I have reached the Classical Era and am researching the technologies on the Literature column part of the tree (done 4 of 10 so far). This is ahead of projections and each of those technologies take between 16 and 40 turns each to research, less as I get a new one and increase my science output (still have not got Literature itself which will increase my research rate too).
Looking a few columns ahead times are roughly the same, between 14 and 57 turns, depending on the technology but with a lot of those my research will increase and thus reduce those times more.

Again, do not take this as a prime example of how things usually go, this is a one off game with the "old" slavery way (minus money from Patrician/Slaves) with incredible production capacity in most cities. It WILL (read "should") be nerfed more.

Cheers

 

[Flinx]

Well, i just had a glance at my XML values and saw i set research to 1500.
The original value is 2500.

Slavery is no solution for me since i never use it.

 

[zeinul]

Please leave building and unit production timers as they were in 24. And give +10-15% bonus to tech research to AI because they still cant keep up in tech with experienced player by classical ages.

 

[Sgtslick]

All right, I'm not sure I get this at all. Research accelerated and building/train time increased, doesn't that mean you get new units even faster?

I don't recommend setting it to how im playing c2c at the moment, im just trying to get to late game for once Also im playing with no tech trading at all, so tech research NEEDS to be increased for this option if you ask me.

I have never played eternity, have played snail it was ok but I still felt like I was wasting time (hard to describe), like lots of pointless waiting and going through repetitive stuff and felt bored frankly.

I have pretty much always increased iConstruct since I hate being able to build 90% of the buildings and having a lot of them only take 1 or 2 turns.

I've never really played with the standard tech times since they got changed to be even slower. I currently like marathon at like 550 iResearch, and per era penalties that go up slowly, 10 ancient (not 60), 20, 30, 40, etc

Techs are basically twice as fast with this setup. Part of the reason I like this setup is because I thoroughly dislike prehistoric era.

Anyway hope this helps explain where im coming from - but as I said - I certainly don't want my totally unbalanced and turbo speed c2c to be the default.

 

[ls612]

Please leave building and unit production timers as they were in 24. And give +10-15% bonus to tech research to AI because they still cant keep up in tech with experienced player by classical ages.

The AI does get a bonus on higher difficulty levels (or more accurately, you get a penalty on higher levels) with Koshling's maintainence option, which is on be default in V24.

I don't recommend setting it to how im playing c2c at the moment, im just trying to get to late game for once Also im playing with no tech trading at all, so tech research NEEDS to be increased for this option if you ask me.

I have never played eternity, have played snail it was ok but I still felt like I was wasting time (hard to describe), like lots of pointless waiting and going through repetitive stuff and felt bored frankly.

I have pretty much always increased iConstruct since I hate being able to build 90% of the buildings and having a lot of them only take 1 or 2 turns.

I've never really played with the standard tech times since they got changed to be even slower. I currently like marathon at like 550 iResearch, and per era penalties that go up slowly, 10 ancient (not 60), 20, 30, 40, etc

Techs are basically twice as fast with this setup. Part of the reason I like this setup is because I thoroughly dislike prehistoric era.

Anyway hope this helps explain where im coming from - but as I said - I certainly don't want my totally unbalanced and turbo speed c2c to be the default.

I feel that the main issue people have been having is that the game is now too slow, and I can understand that. Snail has been getting more and more slow, because I want it to actually take 7200 turns, not the 2200 turns I saw it going for back in V20. I abandoned my Snail game a while ago and went to Marathon, to make things go faster whilst still being balanced.

I certainly could make it so that Snail and Eternity take 6000 and 12000 turns, respectively, with (relatively) little effort when I get back, but that would mean a speedup of about only 15% or so. If the modders want me to do that, I can and will, those numbers should be easy to reach.

 

[BlueGenie]

I don't recommend setting it to how im playing c2c at the moment, im just trying to get to late game for once Also im playing with no tech trading at all, so tech research NEEDS to be increased for this option if you ask me.

I play without Tech Trading as well without increasing the iResearch and it doesn't NEED to be increased, it's a preference is all.

I have never played eternity, have played snail it was ok but I still felt like I was wasting time (hard to describe), like lots of pointless waiting and going through repetitive stuff and felt bored frankly.

This "pointless waiting" is why us Snail and Eternal players want a faster ratio of iTrain and iConstruct than the faster game speeds. We might like to take longer time to enjoy each Era but we don't want to do nothing for eternal periods of time. That's why I've been stating Eternal all along, because the ratios between construct/train and research/speed do not have to be the same.

I have pretty much always increased iConstruct since I hate being able to build 90% of the buildings and having a lot of them only take 1 or 2 turns.

This is a preference of yours. I like to be able to build all buildings I choose to build in every major city (new cities take a looooong time to get to this point anyway) as for me this simulates real life more and because I like it.

I've never really played with the standard tech times since they got changed to be even slower. I currently like marathon at like 550 iResearch, and per era penalties that go up slowly, 10 ancient (not 60), 20, 30, 40, etc

The tech times were reduced because the turns available were increased and needed to be slowed down so civs weren't through the entire tech tree halfway through the turns. It's a HUGE job to change the basis of the technology costs so the penalties are really only a quick fix.

Techs are basically twice as fast with this setup. Part of the reason I like this setup is because I thoroughly dislike prehistoric era.

What about starting in the Ancient Era don't you like then? That way you'd skip Prehistoric and get straight to the parts you enjoy more. If there's anything you miss that should be arrangeable in the various XML files.

Anyway hope this helps explain where im coming from - but as I said - I certainly don't want my totally unbalanced and turbo speed c2c to be the default.

*grin* No worries, lately it's been set to take even longer. Going all the way to a turbocharged C2C from the point we are at now won't happen.

Cheers

 

[Sgtslick]

This "pointless waiting" is why us Snail and Eternal players want a faster ratio of iTrain and iConstruct than the faster game speeds. We might like to take longer time to enjoy each Era but we don't want to do nothing for eternal periods of time. That's why I've been stating Eternal all along, because the ratios between construct/train and research/speed do not have to be the same.

I meant waiting for research generally, especially ocean vessels and decent seige weapons these two things were unbearably slow to get (for me).

I posted ages ago why I think iconstruct and iresearch should not have such a vast difference, let me find it..

Oh, I know about the reasons for research and build being somewhat close to each other but I also think that with different game speeds the ratio between them should be different, not the same ratio throughout all game speeds.

Cheers

k, well here is what i posted back in may anyway.
*Oh and that sounds fair enough too! Different ratio's for different speeds sounds fine to me. The problem as I see it tho is that the ratio's were all wrong to begin with.

Spoiler :

Played 400 turns on epic speed custom map and im miles ahead on deity.. kinda sad.
One thing I have to mention is that I find it almost unplayable at this speed because everything builds too quickly. I like the tech rate and everything else, like growth worker rate etc. But the time it takes to build units and buildings and wonders is way too quick. The reason this is such as problem is it basically drags the game through the mud with having to constantly redo build cues in cities to the point where you are nearly pulling out your hair.

I found this to be a bit of an issue on snail as well but just put it down to my personal preference and ignored it for the most part. On epic tho its nearly unplayable. Its only bearable for me coz I know what im doing and can very quickly shift click build cues from memory and race through popups very fast. However, for a new player trying out this mod - it would be horrible, (i somewhat remember what it was like when i first started playing this mod and was playing epic or marathon. I usually would just end up using automation a lot later in the game even tho i didn't want to, just simply because the never ending prodution complete process detracted way too much from the flow of the game.

Playing feels like a monotonous data-entry job where you just can't wait to finish the job and hit end turn as quick as humanly possible.

There is nothing wrong with the mod, far from it, its just the cost need to be tweaked similar to how research costs have been increased. Its way way too easy to just shift cue every single building (pretty much) and not have to use much strategy at all when making these decisions. You should NOT be able to build every building without them starting to go obsolete shortly after you build them (later in the build cue kinda thing).

There needs to be some level of strategy in terms of where you designate a cities 'time'.
If a city can simply sidestep this altogether because they have the time to build EVERYTHING this really belittles the gameplay and I think is part of the reason the mod isn't all that challenging at the moment.

Anyone can set there research to 100%, shift cue up all the building *excluding about 20% of them. Build your maximum allowed number of hunters/trackers and put them on auto-hunt. Build 1.5-2 workers per cities and put them on automation farms/mine/roads and resources. Put a paper weight down on the enter key, go run some errands for a couple of hours and come back and see that you are way ahead of DEITY AI slight exaggeration i know, but you get my point.

Civ4GameSpeedinfos.xml
EPIC SPEED
-These numbers are % where 100% is the normal price.
<iConstructPercent>150</iConstructPercent> 300 or 350
<iTrainPercent>125</iTrainPercent> 250 or 200


This is what im gonna do from now on anyway. Considering the iResearch in addition to the iTechCostModifier in CIV4EraInfos.xml which further increases technology costs - surely it makes sense to increase building and unit costs as well.

Another point is when production is drawn out the longer it is before a benefit is received the better it is for the AI since they have an inherent production bonus.

__________________
iConstructPercent
iTrainPercent
Should be increased.

CURRENTLY~
Snail
<iResearchPercent>1000</iResearchPercent>
And the additional reduction to how many beakers get applied to your research throughout the eras, say an average of an additional -35% beakers.
<iConstructPercent>300</iConstructPercent>
<iTrainPercent>250</iTrainPercent>

epic
<iResearchPercent>350</iResearchPercent>
And the additional reduction to how many beakers get applied to your research throughout the eras, say an average of like -35%.
<iConstructPercent>150</iConstructPercent>
<iTrainPercent>125</iTrainPercent> These two in particular that need to be increased, I think doubled, but maybe not, depends on what others think too .

This is out of whack in terms of the games pacing and structure.

Lets look at vanilla BTS and Rise of Mankind - A new dawn.

BTS
MARATHON
<iResearchPercent>300</iResearchPercent>
<iConstructPercent>300</iBuildPercent>
<iTrainPercent>200</iTrainPercent>

Rise of Mankind - A new dawn.
SNAIL
<iResearchPercent>700</iResearchPercent>
<iConstructPercent>300</iBuildPercent>
<iTrainPercent>250</iTrainPercent>

EPIC
<iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent>
<iConstructPercent>150</iBuildPercent>
<iTrainPercent>150</iTrainPercent>

*Also remember there are no research penalties in ROM-AND per era

See what I mean, the ratio is totally out of whack in c2c and thats why the player can comfortably build 90% of ALL buildings in EVERY City. Where is the strategy in that..

*sorry its so long

 

[BlueGenie]

Oh, I know about the reasons for research and build being somewhat close to each other but I also think that with different game speeds the ratio between them should be different, not the same ratio throughout all game speeds.

Cheers