City Development

[Txurce]

I'm just noting the trend with gold right now, and that it might be worth considering some alternative uses for gold now that many of the core uses are being taken out with mod changes.

This is definitely not the trend in my games! I build tall cities and lots of infrastructure, as well as invest in CS, and never, ever have gold I can't spend.

 

[Zeppelin4]

This is definitely not the trend in my games! I build tall cities and lots of infrastructure, as well as invest in CS, and never, ever have gold I can't spend.

I'm in the same boat as you Txurce. I never have any issues with gold and have plenty to spend on upgrades, land grabs, etc..

 

[Txurce]

I'm in the same boat as you Txurce. I never have any issues with gold and have plenty to spend on upgrades, land grabs, etc..

I forget to mention land grabs. I often buy tiles to either grab resources, or keep the AI from building near me.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I'd certainly keep the gold exchange for research agreements if I could. There's no other way to replace the free tech part of RAs, though, and the constant free techs do feel rather broken in vanilla.

I do feel like DoFs are a bit overpowered right now. Would it be possible to add a small monetary cost, like 1% of GDP or something? If not, have you considered toning the benefits very slightly? Not a huge deal, but sometimes games end up with everyone being friends with everyone else, and my RA science rate actually becomes larger than my base science rate!

@SlightlyMad
I'd recommend customizing the handicaps for your personal preferences. Simply pick the handicap you play at in the file below, and set the AI Starting Units values however you like.

\TBC - Thals Balance Combined\WWGD\HandicapInfos.xml

Thanks! Yes, I was just thinking of tweaking it myself, but it's sort of a hassle since I'd have to change it again every time I update your mod, and I thought it might be something other people are interested in as well, since you're tweaking difficulty anyways. Sounds like I may be in the minority though, since I run a somewhat unusual game configuration.

 

[Txurce]

I do feel like DoFs are a bit overpowered right now. Would it be possible to add a small monetary cost, like 1% of GDP or something? If not, have you considered toning the benefits very slightly? Not a huge deal, but sometimes games end up with everyone being friends with everyone else, and my RA science rate actually becomes larger than my base science rate!

I usually play a builder game with four cities, and pretty much befriend everyone who's willing. I have never been Friends with everyone. But more to the point, if DoF's are how I get RA's, I would have as many as I could afford under your proposal. Is the game better if I have fewer Friends, just because I can't afford them? I don't think so.

If you think research is still too fast, then lowering the amount of science each RA provides would make more sense. For the record, I'm not in favor of this. But it makes more sense to me than curtailing one of the few productive uses of diplomacy.

 

[SlightlyMad]

That's a good point, I was thinking it would be sort of an offset so you don't feel so punished if you go an isolationist route, but maybe isolationists simply should be punished. What if it was a percentage of net income instead of GDP, so there would never be a point where you can't afford any more friends, and poor empires would get them for effectively no cost whereas rich empires would have to seriously consider whether or not it's worth it.

 

[DeAnno]

I often feel like you already have to pay for DoFs, in the form of demands your "friends" make on you. If you refuse too much, theyll get annoyed and not DoF with you anymore. However this means often a poor AI demands the gold you were trying to save up or an AI demands your extra luxury the turn you complete it.

 

[Thalassicus]

It's also difficult to get DoF's when going for a conquest victory, so there's built-in tradeoffs.

 

[Stalker0]

My only beef with DOFs right now is that I can never get an AI to accept mine. Whenever I offer they turn me down. I always have to wait for them to offer it to me in order to get it.

 

[SlightlyMad]

Excellent point about the demands, that definitely does introduce a cost, which also scales directly with your excess gold and resources. I don't know if anything was changed in the most recent version, but my current game is finally a break from the love-fest of the last several I've played. I was attacked aggressively by a neighbor very early in the game, and then by the medieval era took my revenge and became a complete war-monger, first getting my allies to join me against my enemy, then eventually having my allies turn on me for being a menace. Now everybody hates everyone else, and I haven't seen a DoF in centuries.

 

[Thalassicus]

I really do wish we had direct access to the c++ part of the AI code. It'd be nice to change it so factions form that go to war with one another, like in Civ IV.

Ideally though we would not use Civ IV's love-thy-neighbor style because it's still too simple. The best way would be:

• Peaceful leaders readily befriend other leaders who have captured few cities, and favor close allies.
• Warlike leaders like people when you capture more cities, and favor distant allies.
• Wartime allies get a big friendliness boost with one another.

Peaceful players can defend one another easily, and warlike players obviously wouldn't want to befriend neighbors, but still want trading partners and DoF benefits. To me it seems the most logical way to set up AI disposition.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I actually had an impression initially about diplomacy that I believe was mistaken now, but I think would make sense. Does your happiness rating have any impact on diplomacy? I think having a much different happiness rating than somebody should make you dislike them, so very happy empires like each other, and very unhappy empires like each other, but they would dislike empires different from them. It accomplishes some of what you point out, since large warlike empires are less likely to be very happy, and small peaceful empires are very likely to be happy.

 

[Stalker0]

Thal, I know you have been playing around with the building maintenance numbers.

I agree that libraries should be expensive, but I think 8 maintenance is a bit much. That's such a cost early on, that I simply avoid writing early on...even one library is just too expensive.

 

[Txurce]

Thal, I know you have been playing around with the building maintenance numbers.

I agree that libraries should be expensive, but I think 8 maintenance is a bit much. That's such a cost early on, that I simply avoid writing early on...even one library is just too expensive.

Libraries are currently 2 gpt.

Universities and public schools are 6.

 

[Iceco]

Thal, have you considered writing the DLC-dependent changes in SQL? Or is there a reason you didn't?
I think it's perfectly possible and would remove the need for users to do anything if they have the DLC:

[COLOR="Navy"]CASE WHEN EXISTS(SELECT[/COLOR] Type [COLOR="Navy"]FROM [/COLOR]Improvements [COLOR="Navy"]WHERE [/COLOR]Type=[COLOR="DimGray"]"IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM"[/COLOR])
	[COLOR="navy"]THEN 
		insert into[/COLOR] Improvement_TechFreshWaterYieldChanges [COLOR="navy"]([/COLOR]ImprovementType, TechType,YieldType, Yield[COLOR="navy"])[/COLOR]
			[COLOR="navy"]values([COLOR="DimGray"]'IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'TECH_CIVIL_SERVICE'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'YIELD_FOOD'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'1'[/COLOR]);
		insert into[/COLOR] Improvement_TechNoFreshWaterYieldChanges [COLOR="navy"]([/COLOR]ImprovementType, TechType,YieldType, Yield[COLOR="navy"])
			values([COLOR="DimGray"]'IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'TECH_FERTILIZER'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'YIELD_FOOD'[/COLOR], [COLOR="DimGray"]'1'[/COLOR]);
	END[/COLOR]

I just typed this^ up, didn't test if it actually works or needs changes.
(I don't have any SQL knowledge, I fabricated this by looking at mihaifx's and gedemon's SQL stuff.)

 

[black213]

Thal already has made the Terrace getting more food on Civil Service and Fertilizer. Go into folder called: DLCs - LOOK HERE and remove the "no" in front of the XMLs appropriate to the DLCs which you have.

 

[Iceco]

I am afraid you missed the point.
I am talking about replacing the current method of XML files (which a user has to rename if he has the DLC) with an SQL file that checks for the DLC presence itself and if so applies the changes automatically, without the need for someone to go in and rename the files to activate them.

 

[Stalker0]

Libraries are currently 2 gpt.

Universities and public schools are 6.

Then this may be a bug. The maintenance cost it tells me is 8.

 

[Stalker0]

Then this may be a bug. The maintenance cost it tells me is 8.

Yep it was a bug. I cleaned out the cache and reinstalled the mod and now its showing me the proper amount. hehe, 2 is a bit better more reasonable than 8

 

[Sporhund]

I have a question regarding the growth speed of cities. In my last game, my lovely neighbour Hiawatha managed to grow the city seen as screenshot in attachments.

As it was an AI city, I have no idea how he does it. The land or water isn't particularly rich compared to some of the locations I was sitting on, is this just the result of sitting on food focus the entire game? Size 69 seems a bit excessive, he must have had 140+ million people living there. Version 6.9 of the mod.