City Development

[Thalassicus]

Like the two of you I'm okay with the stable having a niche use. It's still a "build immediately" in games with a horse UU leader. If two or more livestock are nearby it's about as good as a Smithy... cheaper to build and similar production. The principle is for resource-improving buildings to have a second bonus of some sort. The stable meets this condition.

 

[Txurce]

V130's mutiple changes to GW's make a ton of sense and should make the game more enjoyable. The Colossus jumped out at me. I liked the nerf to the Pyramids. Probably least appealing is the Lighthouse, but some GW has to be in the bottom tier, and what it lacks in oomph 1) makes complete sense and 2) will be very useful in the right circumstances.

 

[Thalassicus]

Consider the total production value of bonuses on the Great Lighthouse:

90 = Lighthouse cost
90 = Barracks cost, gives +15 XP for ships
50 = Monument cost, gives 1 1
00 = 1 and 1 sight for ships
----------------------------------------
230 total value
220 cost for Great Lighthouse

I now consider it an immediate priority for any empire with a coastal city. It's even better than the value of its individual parts, since all the effects are maintenance-free, and the barracks/monument effects stack with other such structures. The experience bonus is significant for ships since non-English have no way to start with free XP until Harbors two eras later.

 

[Txurce]

We recently discussed in another thread that human and AI now get the same happiness at the start of the game. On Emperor this is apparently +12. This strikes me as not just too high, but higher than before. What changed, and why? There's enough surplus happiness to seriously affect early expansion strategy.

 

[kc_bandit]

Consider the total production value of bonuses on the Great Lighthouse:

90 = Lighthouse cost
90 = Barracks cost, gives +15 XP for ships
50 = Monument cost, gives 1 1
00 = 1 and 1 sight for ships
----------------------------------------
230 total value
220 cost for Great Lighthouse

I now consider it an immediate priority for any empire with a coastal city. It's even better than the value of its individual parts, since all the effects are maintenance-free, and the barracks/monument effects stack with other such structures. The experience bonus is significant for ships since non-English have no way to start with free XP until Harbors two eras later.

Bingo - it's the first GW I get, unless I pop a ruin and hit some tech that lets me build one sooner. Catherine beat me to the Colossus by one turn the other day though, so I DOW'd her for spite.

 

[Jaybe]

We recently discussed in another thread that human and AI now get the same happiness at the start of the game. On Emperor this is apparently +12. This strikes me as not just too high, but higher than before. What changed, and why? There's enough surplus happiness to seriously affect early expansion strategy.

Is this from the XML, or from after you settle your initial city?
I just checked the v131 HandicapInfos.xml, and the happiness (12) is no different than it's historically been in VEM. After settling it should be 8 (or 7, I forget what the per-city unhappiness is at the moment).

 

[Txurce]

It may be the same as it's always been - I'm not sure, so was asking. It just seemed to me that I've recently had noticeably more happiness in the early part of the game - enough to make expanding easier. It seemed odd, just like it seems odd that the happiness level is higher on the more difficult levels.

 

[wobuffet]

Well, raising everybody's starting happiness probably benefits the AI more than it does us, because the AI is terrible at foreseeing/dealing with impending unhappiness problems.

 

[Thalassicus]

Human-player happiness has remained constant since at least October. The only change since then is the recent -4 starting fix to AIs so they follow the same formula as humans, as was originally intended.

v117.1 Beta: October 18, 2011
Cities

• City unhappiness:
  • 3 + 1 * = Puppets (was 3 + 0.75 * pop).
  • 4 + 1 * = Occupied (unchanged).
  • 4 + 1 * = Normal (unchanged).

Early expansion is mostly identical between vanilla and vem. If we have 3 cities:

Vem
12 and 3*4 per city = 0

Vanilla
09 and 3*3 per city = 0

This means an undeveloped city in the midgame has +1 more than vanilla. This is balanced by +1 higher on vem colosseums. Developed happiness is about the same as vanilla.

The place where VEM differs most is policies. Most policy trees in vem have a powerful happiness booster, but most of those boosters are also high up in the tree. The exception is Piety, whose early polices are designed to be desirable for any strategy.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks for laying all this out. It really helps me to see it clearly.

 

[mitsho]

Is it intended that cities which I reconquered (so I founded them and then lost it to an AI before again conquering it back) need a courthouse? As a general feeling they shouldn't since you shouldn't be punished for getting back what is rightfully yours.

 

[Seek]

Is it intended that cities which I reconquered (so I founded them and then lost it to an AI before again conquering it back) need a courthouse? As a general feeling they shouldn't since you shouldn't be punished for getting back what is rightfully yours.

Ouch. I haven't encountered this, but in a recent game I lost a self-founded city for a turn and when I recaptured it it went into resistance for a number of turns. AFAIK, neither this nor your issue is intended, and neither are they present in vanilla (as you probably know).

 

[Thalassicus]

Are you sure this doesn't happen in vanilla? Vem does change the resistance time and population lost, but I don't think I place cities into a specific status after capture... if that is the case it's a bug.

 

[Seek]

I'm 90% sure, but it *has* been a while since I played a game in vanilla, much less lost a city to an AI! I'm not at home ATM so I can't test it.

 

[mitsho]

I really don't know what happens in Vanilla, and I'm not sure it's a bug. It's probably the first time this has happened to me... There's also the case that you conquer a city which belonged to you but you did not found it. In that case, it's just another occupation and you should need a courthouse I'd guess...

Really, it's complicated and I guess it's a very minor thing...