City State Diplomacy Mod (Updated)

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thanks, everyone, for the quick feedback! I'm glad to hear that it is at least loading and working on a basic level.

I will be updating CSD once I've had time to sift through the systems and get a better feel for the changes brought about by Brave New World. I really, really like the trading mechanic. It is easy to manipulate, and adds great depth to geopolitics without being tedious. It is what I am eyeing the most. Right now, though, I've got two potential new avenues for moving forward:

1. If possible (and I think it is), I am considering shifting diplomatic units over to the trade route model, where a 'route' with a diplo unit would generate x influence points per turn. This wouldn't impact the core trading mechanic, but rather simply borrow it for CSD.

2. I could also integrate the diplomacy-influence system into the existing trade routes system to incentivize players to trade with city-states. Right now, the only bonuses you get are Gold and Religious spread – it would be a nice counter-point to the ever-vital research points potentially received from trading with major civs. This would be the least intrusive update for CSD, and doesn't necessarily have to result in the end of the diplo units, as I could make them more expensive, more powerful and more rare (for those times where you need a big boost of diplomacy with a city-state. I could even turn them into Great People, though I want to avoid overlap with Great Merchants.

If CSD stays the same:

1. I will need to alter unit costs to reflect the additional expenses/units/buildings etc. in the game now.

2. I also plan on altering the diplomatic buildings to give a slight boost to Tourism (reducing their cultural boosts respectively) in order to reflect the role of diplomacy.

3. I am worried that CSD breaks Venice, as I had to modify the Merchant AI to only do 'gold gifts,' and being able to buy city-states is a big factor for Venice. I'm not sure how to correct this.

Ultimately, though, here's the big question: with all of the new mechanics, does the community still feel the need for CSD? I don't want to work on this if it feels redundant, as that was always my admitted stopping point for working on CSD. Personally, I see a lot of potential for CSD to expand on the diplomatic game.

Also, because these mechanics are such an overhaul of the existing mod, I think I am going to release a new version of CSD that is BNW only. That way the Vanilla/G&K version, which works well, won't be a headache to make three-way compatible.

Thoughts?

I confess I'm torn. I do think Option 2 is the more intuitive one, but I would then miss the joy of building diplomatic units-which ties in to Option 1. If you go Option 1, though, then I personally think that-unlike trade-you should have to build a new diplomatic unit every time you want to renew your Diplomatic relations with a City State. I also believe that, if you stick with Option 1, then you should retain the different levels of Diplomatic Units over time as well.

I understand your concerns regarding Venice, but those concerns apply to many existing mechanics already in the game. I think that the Venetian players are already ill-advised to "buy" every City State they come across, & your mod would simply reinforce that.

EDIT: One other thing that kind of puts me off option 1 is that you'd then need to defend both your trade & diplomacy routes-thus making me think option 2 would be the better choice. If you do go with option 1, though, then I'd still have option 2 as another, much smaller, means of gaining influence.

 

[gotchan]

Yes, I still want CSD, because the base city state diplomacy mechanic (gold gifts) is still lame.

Venice might be a problem if the Merchant of Venice is an extension of the Great Merchant and not a modified copy. But I'd rather give up Venice than CSD diplomats. Players can activate or deactivate the mod for individual games.

Things I'd like to see in CSD:BNW, if possible:

1) Diplomatic pressure added to city state trade routes. Either sum the benefits to the city state and divide by 10, or sum the benefits to both parties and divide by 10. An argument could be made for either case as diplomacy is influenced by the interaction between parties.

2) Diplomats on the new trade unit layer to ease traffic jams. This might not be possible with diplomatic units as they are as trade units might not actually exist. Trade routes are founded instantaneously, pay per turn, and are pillaged as tile improvements, not by attacking the units. The units we see might just be graphic fluff. However, they do seem vulnerable to direct attack when repositioning to a new start city. So maybe they do exist?

Things I'd like to see in CSD:

1) Replace gifts of gold to city states with purchasing diplomatic buildings in city states. Have three levels of building to match the three levels of gold gift: Mission, Consulate, Embassy. Give diplomatic units multiple action options as workers have (might be able to steal code from workers). A Messenger can only conduct a diplomatic mission. Envoys can pop for influence or build a Mission (expending the unit and a lump sum of gold). Diplomats can pop for influence or build either a Mission or a Consulate. Ambassadors can pop for influence or build any of Mission, Consulate, or Embassy. Buildings persist until war is declared, then are lost. Having a lower level building offers no discount on building a higher level building. Diplomatic buildings would either provide a percent decrease on influence degradation, or (my preference) add influence each turn—e.g. +0.12, +0.25, +0.5 or +0.25, +0.5, +1. Diplomatic buildings should also have a per turn upkeep like most buildings and tile improvements. Maybe 1, 2, and 3.

For people worried about influence inflation, when I battle with the AI over a City State, or two AIs battle, the numbers already get high enough to lock out anyone who hasn't been involved in the battle. I've seen numbers like "Need 1,645 more to become ally". And I've had over 2,000 influence with a city state and been fighting to keep it. On the same maps there have been city states which only need 60 influence to become allies. No one was interested in them.

I'd very much like to see CSD continue. While BNW enriches the game, it does not address the fundamental lameness of basing city state diplomacy on lump sum gold gifts.

 

[Gazebo]

Yes, I still want CSD, because the base city state diplomacy mechanic (gold gifts) is still lame.

Venice might be a problem if the Merchant of Venice is an extension of the Great Merchant and not a modified copy. But I'd rather give up Venice than CSD diplomats. Players can activate or deactivate the mod for individual games.

Things I'd like to see in CSD:BNW, if possible:

1) Diplomatic pressure added to city state trade routes. Either sum the benefits to the city state and divide by 10, or sum the benefits to both parties and divide by 10. An argument could be made for either case as diplomacy is influenced by the interaction between parties.

2) Diplomats on the new trade unit layer to ease traffic jams. This might not be possible with diplomatic units as they are as trade units might not actually exist. Trade routes are founded instantaneously, pay per turn, and are pillaged as tile improvements, not by attacking the units. The units we see might just be graphic fluff. However, they do seem vulnerable to direct attack when repositioning to a new start city. So maybe they do exist?

Things I'd like to see in CSD:

1) Replace gifts of gold to city states with purchasing diplomatic buildings in city states. Have three levels of building to match the three levels of gold gift: Mission, Consulate, Embassy. Give diplomatic units multiple action options as workers have (might be able to steal code from workers). A Messenger can only conduct a diplomatic mission. Envoys can pop for influence or build a Mission (expending the unit and a lump sum of gold). Diplomats can pop for influence or build either a Mission or a Consulate. Ambassadors can pop for influence or build any of Mission, Consulate, or Embassy. Buildings persist until war is declared, then are lost. Having a lower level building offers no discount on building a higher level building. Diplomatic buildings would either provide a percent decrease on influence degradation, or (my preference) add influence each turn—e.g. +0.12, +0.25, +0.5 or +0.25, +0.5, +1. Diplomatic buildings should also have a per turn upkeep like most buildings and tile improvements. Maybe 1, 2, and 3.

For people worried about influence inflation, when I battle with the AI over a City State, or two AIs battle, the numbers already get high enough to lock out anyone who hasn't been involved in the battle. I've seen numbers like "Need 1,645 more to become ally". And I've had over 2,000 influence with a city state and been fighting to keep it. On the same maps there have been city states which only need 60 influence to become allies. No one was interested in them.

I'd very much like to see CSD continue. While BNW enriches the game, it does not address the fundamental lameness of basing city state diplomacy on lump sum gold gifts.

In reply to both you and Aussie_Lurker, I agree with the latter point. I've played through three games now of vanilla BNW (well, one to 1990, one to 1540 and one to 980), and gold gifts are still both necessary and lame. The quests are not reliable enough, and gold is now a bit more scarce until the end game, at which point it becomes a gold-spam game. Not fun. CSD needs to continue to be CSD as it stands now, but with a few tweaks to take advantage of new rules and mechanics.

Looking at the XML in game, and existing policies/concepts, I see a few things I want to do. This is my 'todo list' as it stands now:

Units: make the early ones cheaper, and the late ones more expensive. A steeper curve will make early-game diplomacy possible, and late-game diplomacy most beneficial to those who put effort in early on (esp. for buildings). I'll try adding them to the trade layer, however it may make the units unresponsive. We'll see.

Basic Buildings: I'm going to make them cheaper, nerf their non-diplo bonuses and boost their diplo-related bonuses. If possible, I'll make it so that they grant the ability to trade influence with city-states (i.e. if you have a school of scribes, you get 2-3 influence per turn with city-states trading from that city). There is a policy which does this (Treaty Organization), but I'm not sure on how to get the LUA to do this. If nothing else, I'll make the policy the opener for the Patronage tree.

National Wonders: nerf culture/gold bonuses, add tourism bonuses. Unit promotions are still good, though I might add more movement speed (to keep diplo units up to pace with other nonmilitary units, and to help with congestion).

World Wonders: same as national wonders. Might shift tech tree locations a bit to spread out wonder love, and perhaps tie each wonder to an policy/ideology branch to more evenly distribute them (Warsaw Pact with Order, no?).

Leaders: all of the new leaders play well with CSD except for Venice. I'm not worried about Venice from a player's perspective too much, but rather from the AI's perspective. If the AI gets a Merchant of Venice, they might simply waste it on a diplo mission instead of using it for puppetry. Conversely, they might used every single CSD unit to puppet all the CSs. Both are catastrophic. I don't yet see a solution for this. I just need to play with it and see what happens. If all else fails I'll just have an option to deactivate Venice.

Policies: The Patronage tree, in my opinion, is weak. It reinforces the gameplay based around gold-gifting and then gives a few passive boosts. I'll keep the building buffs added through CSD's overhaul, and also work on a few mechanics that make diplomatic units stronger (maybe, just maybe, increasing the amount of influence generated per trip!).

Replace gifts of gold to city states with purchasing diplomatic buildings in city states.

I'm not sure how I would go about doing this. I like the idea, though. Perhaps I could borrow Portugal's 'feitoria' and build a literal embassy? I don't know. We shall see.

One other thing that kind of puts me off option 1 is that you'd then need to defend both your trade & diplomacy routes-thus making me think option 2 would be the better choice. If you do go with option 1, though, then I'd still have option 2 as another, much smaller, means of gaining influence.

Yeah, I'm leaning against Option 1 as well, as it restricts your diplomacy partners to your trading partners (which isn't always the case, historically). If nothing else, I'll bring the policy promotion for trade route diplomacy in earlier (via the Patronage opener) for players to have alongside the CSD units.


My goals:

1.) Get CSD, as it is now, working in BNW.
2.) Tinker with Venice to see what it does with CSD.
3.) See how all AI uses it (to see if some underlying mechanics have changed)
4.) Balance updates for units, buildings and existing policies
5.) Add new features (trade influence, etc.)

Sound good?

Update 1: Venice works! Hooray.

 

[gotchan]

My goals:

1.) Get CSD, as it is now, working in BNW.
2.) Tinker with Venice to see what it does with CSD.
3.) See how all AI uses it (to see if some underlying mechanics have changed)
4.) Balance updates for units, buildings and existing policies
5.) Add new features (trade influence, etc.)

Sound good?

Sounds good.

Units: make the early ones cheaper, and the late ones more expensive. A steeper curve will make early-game diplomacy possible, and late-game diplomacy most beneficial to those who put effort in early on (esp. for buildings). I'll try adding them to the trade layer, however it may make the units unresponsive. We'll see.

Particularly if some new sources of influence are added (Treaty Organization, possible Patronage adjustments, possible trade influence, possible diplomatic buildings) more expensive late-game units would not be onerous. It would serve to distinguish the diplomacy specialists from the dabblers. Anyone (player or AI) should still be able to hold one or two close city state allies with ambassadors, but if you want to hold many it will be essential to invest in multiple lines of influence generators.

Basic Buildings: I'm going to make them cheaper, nerf their non-diplo bonuses and boost their diplo-related bonuses. If possible, I'll make it so that they grant the ability to trade influence with city-states (i.e. if you have a school of scribes, you get 2-3 influence per turn with city-states trading from that city). There is a policy which does this (Treaty Organization), but I'm not sure on how to get the LUA to do this. If nothing else, I'll make the policy the opener for the Patronage tree.

I like the idea of diplomatic buildings boosting possible diplomatic influence from trade. It seems logical. Also nerfing the non-diplo bonuses would match the nerfs many non-trade buildings received in BNW and make CSD buildings blend in better.

National Wonders: nerf culture/gold bonuses, add tourism bonuses. Unit promotions are still good, though I might add more movement speed (to keep diplo units up to pace with other nonmilitary units, and to help with congestion).

Sounds good.

World Wonders: same as national wonders. Might shift tech tree locations a bit to spread out wonder love, and perhaps tie each wonder to an policy/ideology branch to more evenly distribute them (Warsaw Pact with Order, no?).

Sounds good, but if you tie CSD World Wonders to ideologies, you should have one wonder available for each ideology. Bonuses could differ, perhaps significantly. Any ideas from the peanut gallery what would be a good Autocracy/Freedom/Order CSD Wonder?

Leaders: all of the new leaders play well with CSD except for Venice. I'm not worried about Venice from a player's perspective too much, but rather from the AI's perspective. If the AI gets a Merchant of Venice, they might simply waste it on a diplo mission instead of using it for puppetry. Conversely, they might used every single CSD unit to puppet all the CSs. Both are catastrophic. I don't yet see a solution for this. I just need to play with it and see what happens. If all else fails I'll just have an option to deactivate Venice.

Options are always good.

Policies: The Patronage tree, in my opinion, is weak. It reinforces the gameplay based around gold-gifting and then gives a few passive boosts. I'll keep the building buffs added through CSD's overhaul, and also work on a few mechanics that make diplomatic units stronger (maybe, just maybe, increasing the amount of influence generated per trip!).

I haven't looked closely at the new Patronage tree, but clearly care needs to be taken not to nerf some vital new feature.

I'm not sure how I would go about doing this. I like the idea, though. Perhaps I could borrow Portugal's 'feitoria' and build a literal embassy? I don't know. We shall see.

It didn't occur to me to borrow the feitoria.
Pros: Pillaging another civ's embassy. Fun!
Cons: If several civs are competing for a city state's favour (I've seen up to four serious contenders in a game) there is limited space for embassies that require a tile.

Update 1: Venice works! Hooray.

Hooray!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

In reply to both you and Aussie_Lurker, I agree with the latter point. I've played through three games now of vanilla BNW (well, one to 1990, one to 1540 and one to 980), and gold gifts are still both necessary and lame. The quests are not reliable enough, and gold is now a bit more scarce until the end game, at which point it becomes a gold-spam game. Not fun. CSD needs to continue to be CSD as it stands now, but with a few tweaks to take advantage of new rules and mechanics.

Looking at the XML in game, and existing policies/concepts, I see a few things I want to do. This is my 'todo list' as it stands now:

Units: make the early ones cheaper, and the late ones more expensive. A steeper curve will make early-game diplomacy possible, and late-game diplomacy most beneficial to those who put effort in early on (esp. for buildings). I'll try adding them to the trade layer, however it may make the units unresponsive. We'll see.

Basic Buildings: I'm going to make them cheaper, nerf their non-diplo bonuses and boost their diplo-related bonuses. If possible, I'll make it so that they grant the ability to trade influence with city-states (i.e. if you have a school of scribes, you get 2-3 influence per turn with city-states trading from that city). There is a policy which does this (Treaty Organization), but I'm not sure on how to get the LUA to do this. If nothing else, I'll make the policy the opener for the Patronage tree.

National Wonders: nerf culture/gold bonuses, add tourism bonuses. Unit promotions are still good, though I might add more movement speed (to keep diplo units up to pace with other nonmilitary units, and to help with congestion).

World Wonders: same as national wonders. Might shift tech tree locations a bit to spread out wonder love, and perhaps tie each wonder to an policy/ideology branch to more evenly distribute them (Warsaw Pact with Order, no?).

Leaders: all of the new leaders play well with CSD except for Venice. I'm not worried about Venice from a player's perspective too much, but rather from the AI's perspective. If the AI gets a Merchant of Venice, they might simply waste it on a diplo mission instead of using it for puppetry. Conversely, they might used every single CSD unit to puppet all the CSs. Both are catastrophic. I don't yet see a solution for this. I just need to play with it and see what happens. If all else fails I'll just have an option to deactivate Venice.

Policies: The Patronage tree, in my opinion, is weak. It reinforces the gameplay based around gold-gifting and then gives a few passive boosts. I'll keep the building buffs added through CSD's overhaul, and also work on a few mechanics that make diplomatic units stronger (maybe, just maybe, increasing the amount of influence generated per trip!).



I'm not sure how I would go about doing this. I like the idea, though. Perhaps I could borrow Portugal's 'feitoria' and build a literal embassy? I don't know. We shall see.



Yeah, I'm leaning against Option 1 as well, as it restricts your diplomacy partners to your trading partners (which isn't always the case, historically). If nothing else, I'll bring the policy promotion for trade route diplomacy in earlier (via the Patronage opener) for players to have alongside the CSD units.


My goals:

1.) Get CSD, as it is now, working in BNW.
2.) Tinker with Venice to see what it does with CSD.
3.) See how all AI uses it (to see if some underlying mechanics have changed)
4.) Balance updates for units, buildings and existing policies
5.) Add new features (trade influence, etc.)

Sound good?

Update 1: Venice works! Hooray.

In the last 3 years, Gazebo, you have failed to disappoint, so I have faith in you this time around too . Is there any way to boost the number, variety & effects of quests? If so, then I'd love to see you tackle that too. I personally don't mind gold gifts, btw, but I think it should be much more tightly regulated-& should be more often tied to existing quests (like the "Investing in a big project" quest).

Also, I don't know if this fits within your "mandate", but I'd love to see City-State Quests & Behaviour more tied to the type & personality of the Civ in question. So Friendly & Neutral Mercantile States might more often ask for contact with major civs, or connecting up of resources, but a Hostile or Erratic Mercantile Civ might be more likely to ask you to bully or declare war on another nearby Mercantile Civ (their competitor). Obviously, though I'd love to see this done, I consider it a lower priority than getting the basic CSD Mod up & running for BNW. Still, please let me know if you think it can be done .

Aussie.

 

[Gazebo]

In the last 3 years, Gazebo, you have failed to disappoint, so I have faith in you this time around too . Is there any way to boost the number, variety & effects of quests? If so, then I'd love to see you tackle that too. I personally don't mind gold gifts, btw, but I think it should be much more tightly regulated-& should be more often tied to existing quests (like the "Investing in a big project" quest).

Also, I don't know if this fits within your "mandate", but I'd love to see City-State Quests & Behaviour more tied to the type & personality of the Civ in question. So Friendly & Neutral Mercantile States might more often ask for contact with major civs, or connecting up of resources, but a Hostile or Erratic Mercantile Civ might be more likely to ask you to bully or declare war on another nearby Mercantile Civ (their competitor). Obviously, though I'd love to see this done, I consider it a lower priority than getting the basic CSD Mod up & running for BNW. Still, please let me know if you think it can be done .

Aussie.

Thanks for the support! I still can't believe it has been three years since this all started.

I'd like to dive in and make more quests (and more interesting ones at that), however, if I do it, I'll probably do it separate from CSD (so as to keep them modular). I haven't messed with the quests very much, so I'm not sure what actually goes into the process of creating them.

Regarding CSD, I'm going to post a BNW compatible version tonight. I'm happy with the conversion thus far, and I think what I am running right now will work as a v1. I've decided to make the BNW version separate from the CSD already on the workshop, so as to minimize compatibility problems.

 

[Gazebo]

Version 1 of BNW-compatible CSD is now out. You can find it on the workshop. Feedback on balance and decisions welcome. Units cost more, are a bit slower to ramp up to usefulness, and buildings are a bit more diplo-centric. All in all, it is the best CSD I've made thus far. I'm happy with it, for a v1 release.

Two big inclusions:

Almost all Diplo-related builds give out promotions. Many of these promotions change the amount of influence received from Diplomatic Missions, so they are very useful. For example, the School of Scribes boosts Influence generation by 10%, which, of 35 Influence, may not seem like a lot at first, but it will make a big difference! Sweden, instead of +3 movement, now gets +20% Influence generation as its UA (Nobel Laureate).

Philanthropy (in Patronage) gives trade routes with CSs +2 Influence per turn. This will lead to a slow increase in friendship with CSs that you are trading with, and is a nice offset to the free research from major civ trading. It stacks with the Freedom 'Treaty Organization' policy to give +5 per turn (I modded it down to +3 from +4).

All of the policies, buildings and promotions have tooltips, so check there if you have questions.

Have fun!
Gazebo

 

[Seek]

Version 1 of BNW-compatible CSD is now out. You can find it on the workshop. Feedback on balance and decisions welcome. Units cost more, are a bit slower to ramp up to usefulness, and buildings are a bit more diplo-centric. All in all, it is the best CSD I've made thus far. I'm happy with it, for a v1 release.

Two big inclusions:

Almost all Diplo-related builds give out promotions. Many of these promotions change the amount of influence received from Diplomatic Missions, so they are very useful. For example, the School of Scribes boosts Influence generation by 10%, which, of 35 Influence, may not seem like a lot at first, but it will make a big difference! Sweden, instead of +3 movement, now gets +20% Influence generation as its UA (Nobel Laureate).

Philanthropy (in Patronage) gives trade routes with CSs +2 Influence per turn. This will lead to a slow increase in friendship with CSs that you are trading with, and is a nice offset to the free research from major civ trading. It stacks with the Freedom 'Treaty Organization' policy to give +5 per turn (I modded it down to +3 from +4).

All of the policies, buildings and promotions have tooltips, so check there if you have questions.

Have fun!
Gazebo

These changes sound fantastic - and out so quick! My next game will be with CSD for sure!

Edit: Also, so nice to finally have variable influence benefits implemented! Do all the units start with the same amount of base influence as previously?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

These changes sound fantastic - and out so quick! My next game will be with CSD for sure!

Edit: Also, so nice to finally have variable influence benefits implemented! Do all the units start with the same amount of base influence as previously?

I concur, Seek, except in my case I might start out my very first game with CSD (as I'm only getting the game today ;-) ).

Aussie.

 

[Gazebo]

I concur, Seek, except in my case I might start out my very first game with CSD (as I'm only getting the game today ;-) ).

Aussie.

Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I really wanted to get a working version of CSD out for the weekend so that international/weekend warriors would have the mod if they wanted. Have fun!
G

Edit: Also, so nice to finally have variable influence benefits implemented! Do all the units start with the same amount of base influence as previously?

I know! Part of me thinks they added this little bit of code just for me. All units start with 35 influence. Bonuses come from building promotions (unless your are Sweden, at which point you start with +20%).

The promotions for units trained in the city:
Royal Signet - +10% from diplomatic mission (from scribe)
Express Service - +3 movement (from post office)
Literacy - +10% from diplomatic mission, +3 movement, ignore terrain costs (from gutenberg press)
Diplomatic Immunity - +25% from diplomatic mission, enter rival territory w/o open borders agreement (from foreign office)

Promotions for all units (From world wonders)
Imperial Seal - +20% from diplomatic missions, +1 movement (from Forum Romanum)
Noble - +2 movement, +10% from diplomatic missions, enter rival territory w/o open borders agreement (from Summer Palace)

Notes: duplication of 'enter rival territory w/o open borders' intentional - Summer Palace is medieval, whereas foreign office is late industrial. Will be a nice 100+ turn bonus to those with noble diplomats!

So, if a player is able to get all of these in the same city (a difficult feat), their diplomatic units will receive 61 influence from diplomatic missions (not to mention +250% diplomatic unit production). It is high, and will very hard to beat (almost a 2:1 ratio for influence), but, since it is a big part of the diplomatic victory, I feel it is fair. We shall see how balancing works out.

 

[Bridger]

Not on the workshop anymore?

Also, I had a bug where the cost to bribe City states was 0 gold for 0 influence in every category

 

[Gazebo]

Not on the workshop anymore?

Also, I had a bug where the cost to bribe City states was 0 gold for 0 influence in every category

That's not a bug, it is because I disabled gold gifts (it keeps the AI from using even if the player's buttons aren't revealed). You can re-enable in the Options.sql file, as before.

The mod is on the Workshop, but I've started a completely new version at v1. it is called: Brave New World - City-State Diplomacy Mod (CSD).

Good luck!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

That's not a bug, it is because I disabled gold gifts (it keeps the AI from using even if the player's buttons aren't revealed). You can re-enable in the Options.sql file, as before.

The mod is on the Workshop, but I've started a completely new version at v1. it is called: Brave New World - City-State Diplomacy Mod (CSD).

Good luck!

Hmm, I would prefer that gold gifts be available...just not as powerful as they are in the base game. Is there any way to make this a possibility?

Aussie.

 

[Gazebo]

Hmm, I would prefer that gold gifts be available...just not as powerful as they are in the base game. Is there any way to make this a possibility?

Aussie.

Sure, just edit your settings in the options.sql file. You can enable and disable gold gifts, values and power.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sure, just edit your settings in the options.sql file. You can enable and disable gold gifts, values and power.

Thanks for that. Quick question, though. First can it be done for a game in progress? Second, I'm a bit unsure on what to set them to...do you have any recommendations?

Aussie.

 

[Gazebo]

Thanks for that. Quick question, though. First can it be done for a game in progress? Second, I'm a bit unsure on what to set them to...do you have any recommendations?

Aussie.

You could always try. It may not work so back up your save. If you look at the options.sql file, I have different settings for easy/medium/hard gold gifts. I'd recommend hard.
G

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You could always try. It may not work so back up your save. If you look at the options.sql file, I have different settings for easy/medium/hard gold gifts. I'd recommend hard.
G

Thanks, Gazebo, you're fantastic . In truth, in my current game, I've yet to meet a *single* City-State. I'm also miles away from my Neighbours & Inland....needless to say it's *killing* my economy!

Aussie.

 

[Gazebo]

V2 is up for BNW. Mainly background changes for AI, flavors, etc. Biggest change is a base influence level of 20, with % increases from free and building-based promotions over time. See the workshop for more on this - going to sleep now.
G

 

[Baleur]

I've been playing as The Inca and after getting the Patronage tree & the influence-while-trading perk, i'm loving it!
It feels not only realistic but also just pure awesome to get influence and good relations by simply trading with city states.

But i must say, i'm getting an average 1.12 influence per turn trading with them.
(They do have my religion, but my religion has no city-state perks. i think it's around 0.68 per turn without religion).
I don't have to bother with diplomats at all once i set up a trade route. And if i had to do the old usual way of paying gold for influence, i'd NEVER have 4 CS allies by now, i'd never be able to afford all those donations. With the trading influence it just keeps rising to 200 influence without any effort on my part.

Of course, one might argue that i must protect the trade routes (they're short and mostly explored, no real danger) and that i'm losing out of "more moneyz" from other more lucrative trade routes.
But again, even if i lose out on +5 gold to another civ trade, i still gain 1-2 luxuries from the city state, along with +3 food in my capital and +1 in every other city for example, and one of them has 12 iron, the ONLY iron i've seen in my continent making it extremely valuable to me.

So it's like, while it is awesome as hell to get influence for trading, it feels a bit too powerful.
I really don't need any diplomats anymore. I get "free goodiez" just by setting up a trade route.
Was the bonus to influence by trading not considering the patronage tree bonus to less influence-degradation? Because they combine, giving you a higher + per turn than the trading-influence perk tooltip says on it's own.

If we imagine a player having only bothered to get Patronage + the trading perk. Just 2 social policies, easy to get, hardly a determined effort for city states.
Perhaps it'd be better to halve the bonus from trading, so it just barely keeps influence steady without any other effort, while still requiring the player to send out messengers and diplomats to actually RAISE the relations. As far as I know I don't have any other influence bonuses from buildings or perks. So i can only imagine how good this is with a dedicated city state civ and full patronage.
Not to mention if a player also chooses religious traits that enhance city state relations as well! It could get out of hand real fast.

Trade routes to maintain, diplomats to raise.
Perhaps if the trade route gets cancelled or raided, there could be a slight influence penalty as the city state gets angry about promised goods not being delivered? This could also off-set the massive gains with some risk reward.

Or am i being silly and this is supposed to be a great boon for choosing Patronage?
Overall, wonderful mod

 

[Gazebo]

I've been playing as The Inca and after getting the Patronage tree & the influence-while-trading perk, i'm loving it!
It feels not only realistic but also just pure awesome to get influence and good relations by simply trading with city states.

But i must say, i'm getting an average 1.12 influence per turn trading with them.
(They do have my religion, but my religion has no city-state perks. i think it's around 0.68 per turn without religion).
I don't have to bother with diplomats at all once i set up a trade route. And if i had to do the old usual way of paying gold for influence, i'd NEVER have 4 CS allies by now, i'd never be able to afford all those donations. With the trading influence it just keeps rising to 200 influence without any effort on my part.

Of course, one might argue that i must protect the trade routes (they're short and mostly explored, no real danger) and that i'm losing out of "more moneyz" from other more lucrative trade routes.
But again, even if i lose out on +5 gold to another civ trade, i still gain 1-2 luxuries from the city state, along with +3 food in my capital and +1 in every other city for example, and one of them has 12 iron, the ONLY iron i've seen in my continent making it extremely valuable to me.

So it's like, while it is awesome as hell to get influence for trading, it feels a bit too powerful.
I really don't need any diplomats anymore. I get "free goodiez" just by setting up a trade route.
Was the bonus to influence by trading not considering the patronage tree bonus to less influence-degradation? Because they combine, giving you a higher + per turn than the trading-influence perk tooltip says on it's own.

If we imagine a player having only bothered to get Patronage + the trading perk. Just 2 social policies, easy to get, hardly a determined effort for city states.
Perhaps it'd be better to halve the bonus from trading, so it just barely keeps influence steady without any other effort, while still requiring the player to send out messengers and diplomats to actually RAISE the relations. As far as I know I don't have any other influence bonuses from buildings or perks. So i can only imagine how good this is with a dedicated city state civ and full patronage.
Not to mention if a player also chooses religious traits that enhance city state relations as well! It could get out of hand real fast.

Trade routes to maintain, diplomats to raise.
Perhaps if the trade route gets cancelled or raided, there could be a slight influence penalty as the city state gets angry about promised goods not being delivered? This could also off-set the massive gains with some risk reward.

Or am i being silly and this is supposed to be a great boon for choosing Patronage?
Overall, wonderful mod

Thanks! It is pretty powerful – I may nerf it a bit to make it more of a 'stabilizer/slow gain.' Ideally, it supposed to give you ~ 30-40 turns of trading to get to friendship, 60-70 turns to get to allied. A few units, other policies and religious traits will, of course, speed that up, but that's quite a bit of investment for just city-states. Keep in mind you are not only losing out on more gold, but also science, religious spread to other major civs and, the real kicker late game, +25% to tourism for a trade route. So there are downsides – my key reason for implementing this feature was to make city-state trading a truly difficult choice: do I get the influence points from a minor civ, or the science/tourism points from a major civ? As I see it, influence = tourism for minor civs, so it really boils down to who you want to influence.

That said, I may either nerf it or move it to the finisher of the tree, as it is pretty strong.

Thanks for the feedback! V3 is plugging along (so many AI changes).