C2C - Civics Discussion Thread

[JosEPh_II]

I'm thinking maybe a BUG option to tell the game to never make automatic switches in worked tiles/specialists for the human player, except for their initial assignment as you get new ones (population to work a new tile that is, or a new specialist). That should be pretty easy to do (a per city function and associated UI would be a fair bit harder). Would that go some way towards resolving the issue?

I missed this! And Yes! that would be a Good 1st step.

But it may need to go further eventually.

JosEPh

 

[Randomness]

Perhaps gold from trade routes needs to be lowered, then you can cut some of the costs, such as inflation and civics, and that would give you a higher low end and a lower high end, which seems to be what you want.

 

[ls612]

Well, I figured out a good portion of what is wrong with the new civics in terms of extreme gold issues. First of all all of the Welfare civics have a -% value. This makes no sense, as they also have upkeep costs, they don't need the -. That is what Upkeep is for, and double-charging for those civics is a bad idea. The second is that Metals and the primitive Currency civic have -30% ! This is way overboard for the early game, especially since Coinage doesn't come until Classical.

My proposal is to

1. Remove the double cost from the Welfare Civics. Their upkeep will simulate and is designed to simulate the costs of providing for society
2. Change the - on the early Coinage civics to 10% and 5% for the first two respectively

This seems like a good start, and combined with Koshling's coming Inflation fix I think it will make the Gold situation much more reasonable. What does everyone else think?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I'll take any help I can. As I'd like to see a "+"gold/turn again. This fluctuating -gold/turn even at 0% research is just Nutz! But I bet the Deity and above players are Loving it!

JosEPh

 

[Mouthwash]

Well, I figured out a good portion of what is wrong with the new civics in terms of extreme gold issues. First of all all of the Welfare civics have a -% value. This makes no sense, as they also have upkeep costs, they don't need the -. That is what Upkeep is for, and double-charging for those civics is a bad idea. The second is that Metals and the primitive Currency civic have -30% ! This is way overboard for the early game, especially since Coinage doesn't come until Classical.

My proposal is to

1. Remove the double cost from the Welfare Civics. Their upkeep will simulate and is designed to simulate the costs of providing for society
2. Change the - on the early Coinage civics to 10% and 5% for the first two respectively

This seems like a good start, and combined with Koshling's coming Inflation fix I think it will make the Gold situation much more reasonable. What does everyone else think?

What about the fraud expenses?

 

[ls612]

What about the fraud expenses?

Upkeep is the mechanic that is designed to simulate all scaling general expenses for civics. Having that AND a -% on a civic is double-charging for said civic, and is seriously messing up game balance.

 

[Koshling]

Upkeep is the mechanic that is designed to simulate all scaling general expenses for civics. Having that AND a -% on a civic is double-charging for said civic, and is seriously messing up game balance.

Upkeep and gold percentage changes do not scale in the same way. Gold percentage changes will scale with your income, but civic upkeep costs do not, and tend to become insignificant later in the game (which gold percentage effects will not). I'm not arguing that the current situation is (or is not) correct, but the two mechanics behave very differently with regard to scaling.

Essentially you cannot use civic upkeep costs with game-start civics, because you may have no income at all (indeed haven't right at the start), which would mean an initial civic with upkeep costs would instant cause your units to be disbanded. Equally civic upkeep costs make little sense on late game civics, because the costs will almost certainly be trivial at that point.

Gold percentage changers should scale wherever you are in the game, so in general I would say that's the better mechanic to use for most civics.

 

[Questdog]

Upkeep is the mechanic that is designed to simulate all scaling general expenses for civics. Having that AND a -% on a civic is double-charging for said civic, and is seriously messing up game balance.

Can't mess up something that is already messed up....

Can't expect the new civics to run smoothly in a game already started under the old ones where cash was way too abundant. I'd play a WHOLE game and never move the research slider off 100% and have thousands upon thousands of gold pieces stockpiled.

I started a new game with the new civics and, so far, they are at least making the economy relevant.

Old Civics in Prehistoric Era: Only thing limiting expansion is Smiley Faces and before too long, there are enough smileys to build all the cities anyone could desire.

New Civics in Prehistoric Era: I don't care about smileys anymore; I have Chiefdom and am scrounging for gold to be able to build my third city.

Anything that limits resources makes your choices more meaningful and that equals more fun as long as the limits haven't made choices irrelevant by forcing you down a specific path to success.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I've given up on the current game. Should've done that as soon as I updated the SVN with the New Civics.

Anything that limits resources makes your choices more meaningful and that equals more fun as long as the limits haven't made choices irrelevant by forcing you down a specific path to success.

So what are you really saying? It's all good? Or it's forcing everyone to play the same way?

JosEPh

 

[Questdog]

So what are you really saying? It's all good? Or it's forcing everyone to play the same way?

JosEPh

I'm saying that so far I like that the new civics are limiting me in ways that the old ones never did and that C2C feels more like a game now rather than a big playground with all the toys piled up where anyone can grab whatever they want.

Limits are good as long as they are not too limiting.....

Optimal: When you have four choices and each will lead you down a different path and each of those paths is a viable route to victory.

No Good #1: When you have four choices and only one of the choices will lead you to victory, while the other three only let you shoot yourself in the foot.

No Good #2: When you have four choices and you can choose them all.

No Good #2 is the way C2C has been up to the introduction of the new civics. You could build whatever you want whenever you want and have as many units as you want and generally just get bored by the abundance.

The new civics change the game to be either like the Optimal or No Good #1 examples. I'm not sure yet which, but either is better than No Good #2. At least now you have to think about what you are doing....

 

[draz]

But I bet the Deity and above players are Loving it!

I'll say, I went from +3000 / turn all the way down to ~ +800 or so. At this rate I might have to drop my research down to 95%, or 90% even.

 

[ls612]

Upkeep and gold percentage changes do not scale in the same way. Gold percentage changes will scale with your income, but civic upkeep costs do not, and tend to become insignificant later in the game (which gold percentage effects will not). I'm not arguing that the current situation is (or is not) correct, but the two mechanics behave very differently with regard to scaling.

Essentially you cannot use civic upkeep costs with game-start civics, because you may have no income at all (indeed haven't right at the start), which would mean an initial civic with upkeep costs would instant cause your units to be disbanded. Equally civic upkeep costs make little sense on late game civics, because the costs will almost certainly be trivial at that point.

Gold percentage changers should scale wherever you are in the game, so in general I would say that's the better mechanic to use for most civics.

Then the Welfare civics should all have no upkeep and instead only have a -%, if that is the way we want to do it. But having both is IMO a bad idea.

 

[Mouthwash]

There are new civics?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Introduced in SVN version 3400 MW.

JosEPh

 

[Koshling]

Then the Welfare civics should all have no upkeep and instead only have a -%, if that is the way we want to do it. But having both is IMO a bad idea.

I don't think that conclusion necessity follows. Because they scale differently you Mitty want som upkeep to set a bar for civilizations to use that civic (the need enough scale to be able to support the base upkeep) but to have it behave like a gold modifier a large civilization scales. It's like a building having plus gold and a gold modifier percentage - they do different things. I am certainly not saying that it should be the rule that most civics that use one would also use the other, but I don't think it's the case that it isn't sometimes appropriate in order to get the right behavior at both small and large scales.

 

[ls612]

I don't think that conclusion necessity follows. Because they scale differently you Mitty want som upkeep to set a bar for civilizations to use that civic (the need enough scale to be able to support the base upkeep) but to have it behave like a gold modifier a large civilization scales. It's like a building having plus gold and a gold modifier percentage - they do different things. I am certainly not saying that it should be the rule that most civics that use one would also use the other, but I don't think it's the case that it isn't sometimes appropriate in order to get the right behavior at both small and large scales.

Well, I think that the new civics have reduced levels by so much that I would say that we have too little gold now, so I'm looking at ways to help the situation. I also think that with this low levels that the AI will really start to struggle, as it does not know exactly how to handle a deficit.

 

[Cyrusfan]

Well, I think that the new civics have reduced levels by so much that I would say that we have too little gold now, so I'm looking at ways to help the situation. I also think that with this low levels that the AI will really start to struggle, as it does not know exactly how to handle a deficit.

It's just one game, but on a planet-generator map (2-5 continents) I was able to hit the happy-imposed limit of a dozen cities (I think this was Chiefdom with theree unhappy per sity over 6) with gold per turn to spare, I just had to be more patient in my expansion than before. This was all on one continent with contact limited to 4 AIs. To me it felt right in that I actually had to manipulate the research slider again and I strongly suspect that going forward, once the new cities developed, I'd be in surplus again. The AI didn't seem hampered (and was messing up my business with sizable stacks of Ambushers).

It's just my feeling, but I think we're closer to the sweet spot on gold than we were in the glut days. Maybe rather than take big swings at the civics, maybe we should look at what leaves some playstyles so cash-strapped. SO seems to run into inflation issues and I gather Koshling is addressing that. I suspect JosEPh_II's issue is with the maps he's playing, so maybe something should be done to make island cities more viable/water tiles more valuable.

 

[ls612]

It's just one game, but on a planet-generator map (2-5 continents) I was able to hit the happy-imposed limit of a dozen cities (I think this was Chiefdom with theree unhappy per sity over 6) with gold per turn to spare, I just had to be more patient in my expansion than before. This was all on one continent with contact limited to 4 AIs. To me it felt right in that I actually had to manipulate the research slider again and I strongly suspect that going forward, once the new cities developed, I'd be in surplus again. The AI didn't seem hampered (and was messing up my business with sizable stacks of Ambushers).

It's just my feeling, but I think we're closer to the sweet spot on gold than we were in the glut days. Maybe rather than take big swings at the civics, maybe we should look at what leaves some playstyles so cash-strapped. SO seems to run into inflation issues and I gather Koshling is addressing that. I suspect JosEPh_II's issue is with the maps he's playing, so maybe something should be done to make island cities more viable/water tiles more valuable.

JosEPh's issue I think is threefold. The first is that Archipeligo maps do not produce as many resources as many other mapscripts do, leading to lower tile yields and a poorer situation. Not knowing a shred of python, I can't check this at all or fix it, but that is my theory from looking at his saves. The second is that inflation seems screwed up on Epic, even though looking at the code it shouldn't be. I'm thinking of adjusting the offests a bit, so that they last until Mid-Ancient, but that is a secondary issue with Koshling's new inflation system which will hopefully be added soon. The third issue is that he doesn't use City Limits, so his city maintenance is higher because he has more cities. I think that there may also be a connection there to maintenance display issues, but I don't know.

 

[makotech222]

I would like to see some sort of crime-fighting civic for this game. Im in the digital age with the best low-revolt civics, and im still getting revolting cities on immortal diff.

 

[Nimek]

@makotech222

build more police units in each city and give them policing promotions.
coonect crime to civics is good idea. I didnt saw v26 but my idea was sometjing like that

Justice - new civic category
mob justice
chief justice
local courthouses
national courthouse
international courthouse
police state
martial law
technocratic justice (like in minority raport movie)