City-States Mod in CBP: Praises, Criticisms, and Suggestions

[Gidoza]

Hello!

I figured that it would be worthwhile to input some of my thoughts on the new City-State system in the CBP after having experienced it in the context of a few games, to note what I like and do not like about it, and perhaps provide some positive input to improve it more. OR, at the very least, receive some input of my own in case I do not really understand what I am seeing, as I am open to correction and do not claim to know the fullness of the vision of the project.


First off, let me say that I very much like the new system. It definitely strikes me as being more balanced and more broad than what Vanilla offered. Effort needs to be placed into gaining City-States (rather than just having sufficient Gold), and one can now "play" with City-States in a way that affects every part of the game (Embassies, votes, Great Diplomats' effects on other people's influence, etc...). And even with effort, control over a City-State is never guaranteed; there also seems to be (in my opinion) much more reason to attack City-States or demand tribute based on the dynamics of the relationships between your Civ and others Civs. All this I like very much.

Second to this is that while City-States are quite important, at the same time there is a degree to which they lack an essentiality. I feel the benefits of a City-State and they help me in my game, but at the same time, I don't sense that I will be utterly obliterated if I lack City-State allies. Somehow I got the sense in Vanilla that the bonuses were more obvious, while the bonuses in CBP are more subtle and long-term. An example of this would be food; whereas in Vanilla even a +1 bonus of food is quite massive really, +1 bonus of food in CBP is useful but less impacting because resource tiles in general provide FAR more stuff (in fact, so much stuff that I can barely see tiles underneath all the resources they create). Similar comment on happiness/luxury resources; it's a BONUS, but not a game-deciding change. All these things I think are positive.



Now where I'm less sure about the City-State effects is primarily with regard to their acquisition as allies. What I'm going to do is list what I've noticed as differences/trends between Vanilla and CBP, what I think about them, and how these systems might be improved.


1. Gold VS Diplomats

In Vanilla, once I have enough gold, I can dominate all the City-States easily and reap insane benefits; it's just a matter of acquiring the necessary gold. This eventually leads to other bonuses that give me more gold that help me to maintain this control over the City-States forever, unless someone just goes ahead and invades them. Of course, this system is lame, because influence is much more broad than this, particularly with regard to physical distance - my control over City-States is limited only by how much I have explored the map.

In CBP, my observation of City-State influence is that it is regulated essentially by production instead of gold. Yes, there's a limited amount of Diplomacy units one can have at the same time (limitation imposed by paper), but the cost of these Diplomacy units, combined with their speed, and the fact that paper infinitely regenerates once the Diplomacy unit has been used up, results in the fact that one or two cities at most (in my experience) is sufficient to build all the Diplomatic units I need to keep control of the City-States I want. This control of City-States is not as all-encompassing as in Vanilla, which is good - proximity makes a difference, now, as it affects how quickly I can reproduce my Diplomats and how much I need to bother creating Chanceries in the Empire. Nevertheless, with the Diplomatic unit upgrades, the bonus is high enough that even with a far proximity, I can control an unreasonable amount of City-States and prevent others from having any, all at a very minor expense. To put it simply, I find that the paper system is better overall, but my ability to generate influence on a whim still strikes me as somewhat lame.

My suggestion is to put a certain cap for a certain period throughout the game - I will get to this after I've gone through all the other details.


2. Unhistoricity

While City-States in history indeed have had one ally or another and have traded hands many times, they have nevertheless had a certain stability throughout time. In certain cases, I don't exactly see this happening in CBP. Seeing as gold is out of the picture (making absolute domination of City-States impossible), Diplomatic units used in little chains create sometimes a situation whereby a contested City-State is trading hands every few turns, declaring war or making peace with people on a regular basis. This does not make sense. In one case at least I have an influence with a City-State that surpasses 750, and the alliance keeps changing hands. Any normal City-State would probably throw up their hands at this point and cut ties with everyone because the situation is so insane. And while gold has its influential value - I can't say that I know of many cities in the real world that focus on creating Diplomats as quickly as possible and sending them someone to talk to a City-State, only to have the people of that city be overwhelmed by the Diplomat's charisma. Something isn't quite right here.

I admit, it is rather FUN to have a City-State that is contested so clearly - for the most part I can't say that I've experienced this kind of tension in Vanilla, so I'll say that this is a positive change. However, nevertheless, a City-State is still a self-governing power and does depend on clarity for its decision-making. Once again, at the end, I will make a suggestion to this effect: namely, that not merely the highest influential power gains alliance with a City-State, but that this influence must be so by a clear margin.


3. Quests

I like the variety of quests that are offered in CBP - I get a sense of a real flow of desires and needs from the people to which the superpowers can respond. This is a big plus that cannot be denied.

However, I must say that what I *don't* like is the nerf to the amount of points offered by quests, for the simple reason that the end result is so trivial. Yes, I do realize that a penalty is incurred if a quest has failed, but that all needs to be weighed against the power of Diplomats...

A. 25 points' bonus with a City-State (if not already allied) is in itself mostly meaningless in order to help an Empire's cause with becoming allied to that City-State. Early in the game, one will not be able to generate enough Diplomats to capitalize on it, and later in the game, Diplomats are so easy to come by that nobody would even notice those 25 points anyways (somewhere around turn 200, I stopped paying attention to quests because they plain and simply no longer mattered - the cost for building Diplomatic units was far better than anything similar requested by a Quest).

B. The penalty incurred by a failure either doesn't matter in the early game (because there isn't enough Diplomatic units to go around to repair the damage that time couldn't heal anyways), or can be completely superceded by a sufficient amount of Diplomatic units.

The fact of the matter is that with the buildings that provide Diplomatic units with an influence power boost, their bonus is so high that all the other influential options given to me by City-States seem petty in comparison. The basic Diplomatic unit may provide 20 Influence - but that upgrades to 30 or 40 with the appropriate upgrades, which aren't easy to come by - and that bonus is HUGE! There's no way a Diplomatic Unit should be superceding an actual QUEST by such a margin. I would have thought that 20 would be a good starting point WITH an upgrade, not without one!

Anyways, my suggestion here (to be found at the end) would be to upgrade the reward from Quests (as in Vanilla), to enhance the meaning of penalties, and drop the impact of Diplomatic Units.




4. GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

Assuming I have assessed things correctly and am not missing anything hugely important, here are the things that come to mind that could diversify, realify, and balance even further the City-State play in CBP, with respect to Influence in particular.


A. Clear Influence

For an Empire to be the Ally of a City-State, it not merely needs to be beyond 60 Influence points with the City-State and have more points than anyone else, but it ALSO must BEAT the runner-up by 50% (number could be changed) of that player's points. Thus, if my runner-up has 400 points, I will need 600 points to be the City-State's Ally. If I have less than 600 points, then NOBODY is that City-State's Ally!

The impact of this change is double-edged. Firstly, this would retain the tug-of-war dynamic that I find most interesting in CBP while retaining a certain level of historicity and eliminating some absurdity of constantly-switching alliances. Instead, there would be a strategic value to merely preventing someone else from having alliance status, which has its own value. Seeing as you can't send diplomatic missions to the City-State of an enemy Empire anyways, this would have no impact on actual war situations.

Secondly, this idea encourages the notion of specific investment in City-State alliances. When a clear margin of influence is needed instead of just a single point of superiority, it will change how one approaches friendship with City-States: I won't be able to count on sending a "regular" Diplomat every so often to all my little allies; I may very well need to accept reality and sacrifice some of them in order to keep the most tactically-helpful ones.



B. Quest Boost/Diplomat Influence

I'd suggest raising the reward for Quests back to 40 as in Vanilla or even 50. This will partially compensate for the change above, and for the change in C that I'm about to make, as well as being a counter-balance for the use of Diplomatic Units.

That being said, if the Diplomatic Unit base influence were to remain the same, I would slice off 5 points of Influence for each of the upgrades available to them, OR slice of 25% of the points originally provided by each Diplomatic Unit (making them 15, 22.5, 30, and 37.5), and make the "upgrades" into 25% bonuses, which I think I prefer. The Diplomatic Units would thus still have clear Influential power and be superior in the correct cities, while still inspiring the player to build them often in other cities as well.

A third note about Diplomats - the thread advertising this part of the patch notes that Diplomats are civilian units and thus are vulnerable without escort. I see a problem with this idea, though - namely, that the Diplomats have no effect on City-States with which one is warring, and thus any City-State with which one is not at war is therefore fully accessible, because to eliminate the Diplomatic Unit from one's territory would cause a war incident, which seems like overkill in most circumstances. Perhaps a system like in Civ 2 whereby a player can "expel" a Diplomatic Unit from their territory could be made available - no war is declared, but the Diplomatic Unit is simply kicked out of the player's territory and returns to its home city. This would give some meaning to actually bothering to escort Diplomats, which would only make sense if there is an Open Borders agreement between two players, so the Military Unit can be let in. The result of such a change is that you cannot send your Diplomatic Units willy-nilly around the map without consequences; they must be strategically-used, or not at all.

Finally, while I would not suggest that Quests make City-States hate you so badly that they declare war on you because of it, it would certainly be interesting if a City-State could get pissed at the player for legitimate reasons that it either declares war despite the player's military power, or at the least refuses to have anything to do with a player that has treated them so badly (Diplomatic Units are totally ineffective for X amount of turns, but Quests would be effective). This give City-States some more autonomy that mimics Empires on a smaller scale. Even the weak do not always capitulate to the strong, and are willing to be a nuisance to stand up for themselves (could be a variable according to what kind of City-State it is).


C. Paper Change

Finally, this is the whopper that I'd like to suggest, which mainly takes the form of limiting the amount of Diplomatic Units that could be produced in the game (which may make part of the change in B with regard to Diplomatic Unit points unnecessary).

Basically, the idea is that instead of Paper's being consumed like any of the other Strategic Resources, it instead functions more like Gold - once used, it is gone forever. The reason for the system is simple: it inspires Quests more, and the donation of military units, because the amount of Diplomatic Units you have is limited and needs to be used where you need them most.

What it looks like is as follows: Rather than a Chancery/Scrivener's Office/whatever providing 1 permanent Paper, it instead creates an amount of paper when the building is first constructed (let's say 5 for a Chancery), and then produces new paper every 50 turns (let's say 3 for a Chancery). Again, once these pieces are paper are used, they are GONE. Effects of gameplay would look something like this:

-the player cannot depend on 1 or 2 Chanceries for all Diplomatic missions anymore, as Paper does not regenerate
-if a player is serious about Diplomacy with City-States, the Chancery suddenly becomes as important as a Granary or a Monument - you NEED that building to produce the additional Paper
-the paper can be saved for a rainy day, so there isn't this continual sense of "urgency" to get the Diplomats out due to regenerating paper
-as paper is ultimately limited, where the Diplomats go actually matters greatly: it hurts to lose them, and one can't spread about influence on 15 different City-States and expect to get major results
-it becomes a strategic war of Diplomacy over City-States


Numbers could be rebalanced, of course, but this is the general idea. And that's what I have for you today. I would again indeed greatly appreciate your feedback on what I have written, criticisms, and especially information particularly relating to if I have somehow missed the point of the City-State system in CBP entirely whereby my suggestions really make no sense at all.


Thank you for your time in reading, everyone, and have a nice day!

-Gidoza

 

[Gazebo]

Big post!

Alright, let's go through this step by step.

For an Empire to be the Ally of a City-State, it not merely needs to be beyond 60 Influence points with the City-State and have more points than anyone else, but it ALSO must BEAT the runner-up by 50% (number could be changed) of that player's points. Thus, if my runner-up has 400 points, I will need 600 points to be the City-State's Ally. If I have less than 600 points, then NOBODY is that City-State's Ally!

That's what the influence represents – your suggestion feels more like an artificial buffer than a solution, to be honest. If you don't want someone to be able to flip your CS with one unit, dump a bit more influence into the CS to give yourself insurance. The AI does this when it can.

I'd suggest raising the reward for Quests back to 40 as in Vanilla or even 50. This will partially compensate for the change above, and for the change in C that I'm about to make, as well as being a counter-balance for the use of Diplomatic Units.

Quests are going to get a look-at soon, as the reward of influence is low (and the rewards, generally, are somewhat lackluster). My current plan is to have the completion of a CS quest net you a small sum of whatever yield the CS generates for friends/allies instantly. I'm also going to look at some of the more boring quests (looking at you, global yield races), but that's a different issue.

That being said, if the Diplomatic Unit base influence were to remain the same, I would slice off 5 points of Influence for each of the upgrades available to them, OR slice of 25% of the points originally provided by each Diplomatic Unit (making them 15, 22.5, 30, and 37.5), and make the "upgrades" into 25% bonuses, which I think I prefer. The Diplomatic Units would thus still have clear Influential power and be superior in the correct cities, while still inspiring the player to build them often in other cities as well.

Diplomatic Units and their influence were tweaked in the previous version, though I'm willing to look at the values again. Which version were you playing on?

A third note about Diplomats - the thread advertising this part of the patch notes that Diplomats are civilian units and thus are vulnerable without escort. I see a problem with this idea, though - namely, that the Diplomats have no effect on City-States with which one is warring, and thus any City-State with which one is not at war is therefore fully accessible, because to eliminate the Diplomatic Unit from one's territory would cause a war incident, which seems like overkill in most circumstances.

The main threat early on is barbs, and later on war. If a civ is at war with you, CSs near that civ are a risky decision. That's the long-and-short of this system, and anything else would be a bear to teach the AI. Open Borders still matter to diplo units (up to a point), so you can use that to shelter CSs and keep them away from your units. Also, I know of a few players around here who attack diplo units and DOW on a civ just to keep diplo units away from their CSs.

What it looks like is as follows: Rather than a Chancery/Scrivener's Office/whatever providing 1 permanent Paper, it instead creates an amount of paper when the building is first constructed (let's say 5 for a Chancery), and then produces new paper every 50 turns (let's say 3 for a Chancery). Again, once these pieces are paper are used, they are GONE. Effects of gameplay would look something like this:

In a way, the system is already this way, as your units tie up your resources for X turns while they make their journey. Early on this means you can barely afford one, let alone two units out at one time. As the game goes on, you need more paper to buy more units, yet those papers are still tied up in the units as they travel. It would defy the logic of the SR system to have paper behave differently, and that's not something I really want to do. If the paper values or paper costs are out of balance we can always adjust them, but rewriting the system seems like overkill when the core concept already in place is almost identical to your idea.

 

[Dwyer99]

In regards to the idea of a Diplomatic Buffer, the frustrating issue I've seen pop up in several games is repeated successful coups. I was under the impression that a larger margin of difference in influence would mean a lower chance of a coup working, but I'm no longer sure. I've had several games where I dwarf an AI in favor with a City State, he goes for a coup and is successful (okay, I get it, it happens sometimes). I then follow up by throwing enough diplomats at it to gain nearly a nearly 250-300 advantage, by which time the AI launches another successful coup. Repeat that about 6 times and building diplomats just doesn't seem worth it.

To me, a difference in influence that large should make a coup more difficult than the current state and failing at an attempted coup should cause a sizable impact on the current level of influence with a City State. Successful coups would still be quite useful, but repeated coups in scenarios like I described above wouldn't be common.

 

[Gazebo]

In regards to the idea of a Diplomatic Buffer, the frustrating issue I've seen pop up in several games is repeated successful coups. I was under the impression that a larger margin of difference in influence would mean a lower chance of a coup working, but I'm no longer sure. I've had several games where I dwarf an AI in favor with a City State, he goes for a coup and is successful (okay, I get it, it happens sometimes). I then follow up by throwing enough diplomats at it to gain nearly a nearly 250-300 advantage, by which time the AI launches another successful coup. Repeat that about 6 times and building diplomats just doesn't seem worth it.

To me, a difference in influence that large should make a coup more difficult than the current state and failing at an attempted coup should cause a sizable impact on the current level of influence with a City State. Successful coups would still be quite useful, but repeated coups in scenarios like I described above wouldn't be common.

Same civ doing it over and over? Difference in influence does matter, but more important are policies and spy levels.

G

 

[Dwyer99]

The first time I've seen this was against Rome and I was playing as the English. I can't recall their policies, but I was progress, statecraft, imperialism, and order. I really wanted to try to out the naval bonuses at the time I believe. (Now that I think about it, I never did get my extra spy from the English' UA) The second time this happened the culprit was Alexander and I was Arabia. Again, unfortunately I can't recall their policies but I went progress, piety, Industry? (the commerce one), order, if that helps any.

I mean, if the mechanics are there, I guess maybe the AI was making sacrifices to RNGesus, but otherwise it seems a little strange.

 

[playshogi]

I really don't like having to move diplomatic units around the map. I thought maybe using the system where you gift a unit to a CS for influence could be used for diplomatic units as well.
Alternatively, use the caravan system for moving diplomatic units. That way they could be intercepted and killed, if you were so inclined. In this system, you could get a popup with each CS you could travel to (like the trade route screen), with information as to cash required for influence gained. Once the diplomatic unit reached the city-state it could be consumed or make a return trip, where the diplomatic unit provides you with a quest from the CS it returned from. (rather than quests showing up randomly). In this way, you don't have to build (or buy) diplomatic units over and over, but are still limited by paper.

 

[Takagi Hiro]

I really don't like having to move diplomatic units around the map. I thought maybe using the system where you gift a unit to a CS for influence could be used for diplomatic units as well.
Alternatively, use the caravan system for moving diplomatic units. That way they could be intercepted and killed, if you were so inclined. In this system, you could get a popup with each CS you could travel to (like the trade route screen), with information as to cash required for influence gained. Once the diplomatic unit reached the city-state it could be consumed or make a return trip, where the diplomatic unit provides you with a quest from the CS it returned from. (rather than quests showing up randomly). In this way, you don't have to build (or buy) diplomatic units over and over, but are still limited by paper.

If this is within coding ability, I would really like this, but something tells me it's not nearly as easy as it seems.

 

[vyyt]

I really don't like having to move diplomatic units around the map.

It is not exactly what you want, but you do not need to move the diplo units every turn, you can just set the path for them to the CS and leave them. If they do not get eaten by barbs on the way, they will reach the CS eventually.

 

[Gazebo]

I really don't like having to move diplomatic units around the map. I thought maybe using the system where you gift a unit to a CS for influence could be used for diplomatic units as well.
Alternatively, use the caravan system for moving diplomatic units. That way they could be intercepted and killed, if you were so inclined. In this system, you could get a popup with each CS you could travel to (like the trade route screen), with information as to cash required for influence gained. Once the diplomatic unit reached the city-state it could be consumed or make a return trip, where the diplomatic unit provides you with a quest from the CS it returned from. (rather than quests showing up randomly). In this way, you don't have to build (or buy) diplomatic units over and over, but are still limited by paper.

You can also automate them. And no, that caravan model is not feasible.

G

 

[Gothic_Empire]

You can also automate them. And no, that caravan model is not feasible.
G

Huh. How do they select a CS when automated? Closest? Least rep? Most likely to be allied? I was really impressed with automated archaeologists, btw. Not sure when that got added, but it works really well.

 

[Gazebo]

Huh. How do they select a CS when automated? Closest? Least rep? Most likely to be allied? I was really impressed with automated archaeologists, btw. Not sure when that got added, but it works really well.

Uses same logic as AI. Proximity and influence are considered, as well as quests, etc.

 

[Gidoza]

Okay, sorry for the delay! Have a chance to read & respond now, so I will.

That's what the influence represents – your suggestion feels more like an artificial buffer than a solution, to be honest. If you don't want someone to be able to flip your CS with one unit, dump a bit more influence into the CS to give yourself insurance. The AI does this when it can.

But that wasn't what I was saying. It's fine if I lose control over the City-State. My suggestion in this domain has to do with the City-State itself, and not any of the Empires - it simply isn't realistic for City-States to be shifting alliances every turn or every year and constantly declaring peace or declaring war on different people - City-States are more stable than this. The buffer is for the City-State's own stability, not for me.

One example is where I was fighting an opponent with a very inconveniently-placed (for me) City-State that had obviously been fed lots of units. My opponent was fighting over the City-State with some other neutral civilization; once Civilization B had the City-State switch alliances, I dumped my ready-and-waiting Diplomats and Great Diplomat into the City-State, took it over, at which point it declared war on its former ally, which also caused its ally to lose all influence with the former ally, and bang, I have a massive fleet on my side. This is just stupid. The game already prevents you from exerting influence changes on a City-State with which you are at war - so why should it be okay to exert an influence change indirectly by having someone else influence it so you can make peace with it and then have them declare war on their former allies.

At the very LEAST, I would suggest a buffer whereby a City-State's alliance status cannot change for every 5 or 10 turns. Once someone is that City-State's Ally, it is honorable to it's Ally for a set amount of time despite any influence changes - after the time has elapsed, then it considers the new circumstances (as though from a city vote, which is realistic), and changes hands. This would prevent some of these absurd situations from occurring.

Quests are going to get a look-at soon, as the reward of influence is low (and the rewards, generally, are somewhat lackluster). My current plan is to have the completion of a CS quest net you a small sum of whatever yield the CS generates for friends/allies instantly. I'm also going to look at some of the more boring quests (looking at you, global yield races), but that's a different issue.

Okay, this seems interesting - will look forward to hearing more on this one.

Diplomatic Units and their influence were tweaked in the previous version, though I'm willing to look at the values again. Which version were you playing on?

The pre-October 25th version!

The main threat early on is barbs, and later on war. If a civ is at war with you, CSs near that civ are a risky decision. That's the long-and-short of this system, and anything else would be a bear to teach the AI. Open Borders still matter to diplo units (up to a point), so you can use that to shelter CSs and keep them away from your units. Also, I know of a few players around here who attack diplo units and DOW on a civ just to keep diplo units away from their CSs.

Well, a different way to look at it is this: for example, in one war where I was fighting, I allied myself with a CS near my opponent. The extra firepower was helpful, but what was even more helpful was that the opponent conquered the CS: I am thereby enabled to liberate it, which negates some of my warmonger penalties. Then my opponent conquers it again, and I liberate it again. When all is said and done, my warmonger penalties are far less than what they reasonably should be for repeating this process.

Now true, there's nothing wrong with declaring war to shelter City-States from Diplo units...IF you can actually afford to declare on someone to do that. It makes much more sense in a real-world perspective to have the option to boot Diplomatic units out. You can ask a Civ to stop spying on you; presumably you could ask a Civ to get their Diplomatic units out, too, because of the implications of having them there. Booting a Diplomatic unit out should be the difference between declaring war and causing an international incident: it isn't a declaration of war, but perhaps the Civ that got their Diplomatic unit booted out would have the option to be angry over it.

I guess one better way and simpler way to handle it is simply to reduce the movement points on Diplo units. I don't know why they're so fast, anyways - how are they moving faster than Horses and Tanks without the use of Oil or Horses? I didn't realize that Paper offered such powerful propulsion. It's unnecessary.

In a way, the system is already this way, as your units tie up your resources for X turns while they make their journey. Early on this means you can barely afford one, let alone two units out at one time. As the game goes on, you need more paper to buy more units, yet those papers are still tied up in the units as they travel. It would defy the logic of the SR system to have paper behave differently, and that's not something I really want to do. If the paper values or paper costs are out of balance we can always adjust them, but rewriting the system seems like overkill when the core concept already in place is almost identical to your idea.

On this one I have to disagree with you totally. While there may be some similarities, I don't see how the ultimate function of the idea is anywhere the same. I'll compare the similarities and differences.

1. SIMILAR - If in my system one was constructing Diplomatic units at about the same rate as in the current system, then there would be no difference. This is granted.

2. SIMILAR - Also granted is that if you have more Chanceries in the current system, then you can build more Diplo units at the same time to use on the field.

3. DIFFERENT - In my system, more paper is provided initially, which means you can go for a short-term pump of Diplomatic units and get them out there. You might have no paper left afterwards, but you'll see immediate effects, and your entire Empire can participate in it.

4. DIFFERENT - Since in my proposed system paper can gradually build up if you don't use it, the number of Diplomatic units you can have on the board at one time is vastly greater than what the current system offers. This means that you can plan and execute Diplomatic missions in time of need, or counter enemy Diplomatic missions in the same way.

5. DIFFERENT - Whereas in the present system even a small amount of paper can produce an infinite amount of Diplomatic units from those cities dedicated to the task of producing them (so long as the units are then quickly used), my proposed system places a cap on how many said units can be produced, which inherently depends on how many Chanceries I have. In the present system, if I don't need more Diplomats than I'm already using, I simply don't build more Chanceries - it's a waste of money and production. In my proposed system, Diplomacy is an Empire-wide investment just as Tourism or warring would be; and this seems appropriate, as one can have a Diplomatic victory.



What I'm NOT saying is that my proposed system is perfect, or possible in the framework of the design; what I AM saying is that it makes no sense (in my view) to say that the two systems are the same. Anything the same between both systems is incidental only.



Anyways - thanks for the feedback. Well-rounded with both stuff I like and can banter about. Will be happy to hear your response again - cheers!
-Gidoza

 

[Gazebo]

But that wasn't what I was saying. It's fine if I lose control over the City-State. My suggestion in this domain has to do with the City-State itself, and not any of the Empires - it simply isn't realistic for City-States to be shifting alliances every turn or every year and constantly declaring peace or declaring war on different people - City-States are more stable than this. The buffer is for the City-State's own stability, not for me.

At the very LEAST, I would suggest a buffer whereby a City-State's alliance status cannot change for every 5 or 10 turns. Once someone is that City-State's Ally, it is honorable to it's Ally for a set amount of time despite any influence changes - after the time has elapsed, then it considers the new circumstances (as though from a city vote, which is realistic), and changes hands. This would prevent some of these absurd situations from occurring.

I'll be straight: this is a really opaque concept. I can already hear players asking me, "why can't my diplo unit I sent to this city do its mission? It told me I could last turn and now I can't." Also, how does the AI respond to this? How does it interact with Spies? Quests? This would get real confusing, real fast, and would break so many gameplay elements that provide influence. (as influence would 'pool' and you'd have no idea when the cooldown might end, or who would come out as the influential player.

Long story short, not gonna happen. But I like compromises. A much simpler system would be to make CSD units and Great Merchants unable to interact with a CS while that CS is at war with a major civ. This would leave CS alliances vulnerable to Quests/Coups/Decay without making things arcane.

I guess one better way and simpler way to handle it is simply to reduce the movement points on Diplo units. I don't know why they're so fast, anyways - how are they moving faster than Horses and Tanks without the use of Oil or Horses? I didn't realize that Paper offered such powerful propulsion. It's unnecessary.

Unit speed being nerfed is an option. I'll consider it.

On this one I have to disagree with you totally. While there may be some similarities, I don't see how the ultimate function of the idea is anywhere the same. I'll compare the similarities and differences.

What I'm NOT saying is that my proposed system is perfect, or possible in the framework of the design; what I AM saying is that it makes no sense (in my view) to say that the two systems are the same. Anything the same between both systems is incidental only.

Again, the issue is complexity for the sake of complexity. Players understand strategic resources. They exist, they are locked into units/buildings, they are released when x unit/building is destroyed. This works just fine for CSD. Creating 'pulses' of resources that build up/reduce would create a completely unique resource system for very little gain.

G

 

[Strigvir]

Reduced movement doesn't work very well with spammable expendable units. It will only lead to annoying late-game micro, with which AI won't have problems with.

 

[Gidoza]

I'll be straight: this is a really opaque concept. I can already hear players asking me, "why can't my diplo unit I sent to this city do its mission? It told me I could last turn and now I can't." Also, how does the AI respond to this? How does it interact with Spies? Quests? This would get real confusing, real fast, and would break so many gameplay elements that provide influence. (as influence would 'pool' and you'd have no idea when the cooldown might end, or who would come out as the influential player.

Long story short, not gonna happen. But I like compromises. A much simpler system would be to make CSD units and Great Merchants unable to interact with a CS while that CS is at war with a major civ. This would leave CS alliances vulnerable to Quests/Coups/Decay without making things arcane.

Your comment is fair enough with regard to the "amount of turns before alliance shift" version of my suggestion - though I don't see what's wrong with needing 50% more points than anyone else in order to be deemed an ally. Your compromise is an interesting one, though - let me think on it, as I see some interesting positives and negatives on that.

Again, the issue is complexity for the sake of complexity. Players understand strategic resources. They exist, they are locked into units/buildings, they are released when x unit/building is destroyed. This works just fine for CSD. Creating 'pulses' of resources that build up/reduce would create a completely unique resource system for very little gain.

Reduced movement doesn't work very well with spammable expendable units. It will only lead to annoying late-game micro, with which AI won't have problems with.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the name "spammable." There's just an element of cheesiness in it that seems detrimental to the game. The fact of the matter is that Paper is NOT a strategic resource like the other strategic resources - Iron, Horses, etc...place a cap on the amount of certain kinds of units that you can have, which are powerful, and you work within that margin. Paper provides this cap in theory, but not in reality - instead, it's about how fast you can get to your destination. I'm not suggesting complexity for the sake of complexity: I'm noting a discrepancy between the kinds of Strategic Resources available, and my note is that Paper functions in a way that is odd and unnatural. I admit that my suggestion may not be the best one, but I'm confident that the current status quo is something that can be greatly improved and polished.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Looks like it's possible to discuss CSD in the end. Gazebo, did you stop silencing the 10% that don't like it

OK, that joke is done, now for the serious part. Don't get me wrong, i appreciate all the effort you put in CP and related mods, and i understand the reason for CSD as the basic Civ system was pretty lame. However in my view, CSD fails at it's stated goal because it replaced one lame diplomatic system with another lame diplomatic system.

• Vanilla diplo : amass enough gold, open CS screen, give gold, win
• CSD diplo : get a few good prod cities to crank diplomats or amass enough gold to buy them, send them to CS, win

All the paper and chanceries stuff only make it a little more involved (you have to build those first) and the limited (but high) move of diplomats makes it harder to ally far away CS, but not much. Overall, it's a little better, and needs more micromanagement.

That was harsh, sorry I don't want to be rude, it's how i feel about CSD since it was first released. Now i haven't really tested the most recent builds, maybe it's better, but from what i read here, not much.

Are you still open to suggestions for changes or are you done with it and will only tweak it? Because i think the base for something great is present in CSD, but it's not quite there yet. I understand you don't want to use a caravan system as it would probably require more dll modding (but i liked the idea). How about something else :

• Keep the existing system as a framework
• Remove paper as a resource as limiting consumable units with a resource doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, limit them like missionaries (low, flat number 1 or 2)
• Diplomatic units sent to a CS will establish a consulate but don't grant ANY influence
• Diplomatic buildings specialist (Civil Servant but can be renamed) don't provide any yield (and might consume gold). They do provide Great Diplomat points and Influence points. Those Influence points are distributed to all the CS you have a consulate with (possibly with some decay if CS is far away, so 1 point produced could actually give 0.5 to a far away CS)
• Great Diplomats retain their large influence boost mission, but as they are GP, they are truly limited.

The effect would be the real need to invest into diplomacy (by using population as specialist that don't give any yield). It would reduce micro-management (no need to send waves of envoys). It would probably give better stability to CS (since apart from quests and GD, there would be no way to get bulk influence points). It would provide some strategic choices (do you try to keep a few allies which can be done with not too many specialists, or try to ally every CS at wich point you will probably need many specialists, quests and possibly spies). It would require some (probably) Lua coding to distribute the Influence but no hard dll stuff (at least i think it would be possible).

I tried to keep this relatively short. We can discuss this further if you think the idea is interesting and it's possible to implement it.

 

[PurpleMentat]

• Keep the existing system as a framework
• Remove paper as a resource as limiting consumable units with a resource doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, limit them like missionaries (low, flat number 1 or 2)
• Diplomatic units sent to a CS will establish a consulate but don't grant ANY influence
• Diplomatic buildings specialist (Civil Servant but can be renamed) don't provide any yield (and might consume gold). They do provide Great Diplomat points and Influence points. Those Influence points are distributed to all the CS you have a consulate with (possibly with some decay if CS is far away, so 1 point produced could actually give 0.5 to a far away CS)
• Great Diplomats retain their large influence boost mission, but as they are GP, they are truly limited.

A couple quick critiques, with the goal of hammering this into a full fleshed suggestion without hidden pitfalls:

• Missionaries aren't really limited by anything but Faith and upkeep. My last Byzantium game, I had 20 Missionaries following my naval scouts looking for the new continent, and could have been buying a new Missionary every turn if I so desired. In effect, they are a consumable unit with a resource limit.
• It involves throwing out a TON of prior work. The entire framework is gone, the only things the same are the names.
• When you talk about establishing consulates, I imagine you are basing this on the embassies that currently exist. What happens when six civs want to compete for a city-state? Can't overwrite resources, so you end up with a city-state who's lands consist of a couple improved resources and a field of consulates. Otherwise, you need a new stored variable, and a way to display who has consulates with the city-states.
• If the only use of the diplomatic unit is establishing a consulate, then either consulates have to be refreshed every X turns or you will have a pretty strict limit of diplomatic units you ever need to build (one per city-state).
• Civil Servants providing influence per turn seems janky. It's either not enough to counter influence decay, meaning it's essentially worthless, or it's surpassing influence decay, meaning you will eventually be allies. The only issue at that point becomes competing with the AI or other players.
• The last point makes quests overwhelmingly important, which means that RNGesus decides who gets to perma-ally most of the city-states. When your only influence bomb to drastically swing things is a Great Diplomat, the first person to complete 2 quests for a city-state will be 90 influence ahead of anyone else. With everyone having the same access to consulates and civil servants, there is no catching and surpassing.
• Likewise, spies become essential to city-state diplomacy. Rigging elections and coups are drastically more powerful when your only other source of influence is a slow tick per turn.
• Depending on how points are distributed, you either cannot possibly have enough civil servants (each provides X points that are randomly distributed between city-states) or you only need a small handful (each provides X points that are granted to all city-states). With 24 city-states, and 3 to 5 Civil Servants per city, 1 point per turn for each city-state would mean you only need 1 city of diplomacy, and 1 point per turn randomly distributed to 1 city-state means you can only ever keep one, possibly two allies per city-state.
• Teaching the AI to use this system is much more difficult than the influence bomb units

Alright, I kind of kept going and thinking through implications, it wasn't short. TL;DR here is I don't think the system you have proposed is viable on any level. Diplomatic Victory becomes the most difficult in the game, or the easiest in the game. It requires either an extremely wide empire, or a single tall city.

 

[Gazebo]

Looks like it's possible to discuss CSD in the end. Gazebo, did you stop silencing the 10% that don't like it

OK, that joke is done, now for the serious part. Don't get me wrong, i appreciate all the effort you put in CP and related mods, and i understand the reason for CSD as the basic Civ system was pretty lame. However in my view, CSD fails at it's stated goal because it replaced one lame diplomatic system with another lame diplomatic system.

• Vanilla diplo : amass enough gold, open CS screen, give gold, win
• CSD diplo : get a few good prod cities to crank diplomats or amass enough gold to buy them, send them to CS, win

All the paper and chanceries stuff only make it a little more involved (you have to build those first) and the limited (but high) move of diplomats makes it harder to ally far away CS, but not much. Overall, it's a little better, and needs more micromanagement.

That was harsh, sorry I don't want to be rude, it's how i feel about CSD since it was first released. Now i haven't really tested the most recent builds, maybe it's better, but from what i read here, not much.

Are you still open to suggestions for changes or are you done with it and will only tweak it? Because i think the base for something great is present in CSD, but it's not quite there yet. I understand you don't want to use a caravan system as it would probably require more dll modding (but i liked the idea). How about something else :

• Keep the existing system as a framework
• Remove paper as a resource as limiting consumable units with a resource doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, limit them like missionaries (low, flat number 1 or 2)
• Diplomatic units sent to a CS will establish a consulate but don't grant ANY influence
• Diplomatic buildings specialist (Civil Servant but can be renamed) don't provide any yield (and might consume gold). They do provide Great Diplomat points and Influence points. Those Influence points are distributed to all the CS you have a consulate with (possibly with some decay if CS is far away, so 1 point produced could actually give 0.5 to a far away CS)
• Great Diplomats retain their large influence boost mission, but as they are GP, they are truly limited.

The effect would be the real need to invest into diplomacy (by using population as specialist that don't give any yield). It would reduce micro-management (no need to send waves of envoys). It would probably give better stability to CS (since apart from quests and GD, there would be no way to get bulk influence points). It would provide some strategic choices (do you try to keep a few allies which can be done with not too many specialists, or try to ally every CS at wich point you will probably need many specialists, quests and possibly spies). It would require some (probably) Lua coding to distribute the Influence but no hard dll stuff (at least i think it would be possible).

I tried to keep this relatively short. We can discuss this further if you think the idea is interesting and it's possible to implement it.

Going back to a model like this (something I toyed with in the early days of CSD development) returns the experience to a 'click next turn' strategy, as there is zero direct civ involvement. In terms of AI, specialists are valued based on yields - no yields on a specialist would mean rewriting a significant chunk of specialist code to get the AI to even 'realize' they exist. Also, with consulates, you'd have to get the AI not to overextend and/or generate a 'retraction' mechanic, which would make it hard to catch up to civs with way more influence that you (especially if you can't retract).

On paper it looks fine, but, especially with the AI in mind, a passive model like this breaks down when you consider the level of player interactivity and the nuances of gameplay that would be lost.

G

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Also, the new "you can't steal a city state at war" mechanic adds a lot nuance to global politics. I find myself bribing warlords to stop being aggressors now, and even attacking them when I am serious about stealing a city state.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Missionaries aren't really limited by anything but Faith and upkeep. My last Byzantium game, I had 20 Missionaries following my naval scouts looking for the new continent, and could have been buying a new Missionary every turn if I so desired. In effect, they are a consumable unit with a resource limit.

I thought they were (in vanilla CiV) , but i never have more than 3 at a time. Might be something i remember from Civ4. Anyway, i think Paper is rather pointless as a strategic resource for consumable units anyway and if the max number of units per civ variable is still in use, it would be just as efficient

When you talk about establishing consulates, I imagine you are basing this on the embassies that currently exist...

I was throwing a name there. Basically it would be a variable somewhere so that the game engine knows you are trying to keep good relations with the CS

If the only use of the diplomatic unit is establishing a consulate, then either consulates have to be refreshed every X turns or you will have a pretty strict limit of diplomatic units you ever need to build (one per city-state).

Yes, but i don't like rebuilding units over and over again. My idea would be they are (semi) permanent. You could loose them if you get at war with the CS, you could disable them, but otherwise they wouldn't just expire.

Civil Servants providing influence per turn seems janky. It's either not enough to counter influence decay, meaning it's essentially worthless, or it's surpassing influence decay, meaning you will eventually be allies.

Balancing is never something easy. I would see this as a way to keep good relations with CS, or slightly improving those relations if you focus on a few CS. But how you actually treat them should be the most important factor : this means doing quests, being a good neighbor (you never stole their workers), trading with them (i think trading should improve relations without the need for specific policies). You could probably get more ideas.

The last point makes quests overwhelmingly important

Exactly, that's quite the point. Of course, quests should probably be tweaked accordingly.

Likewise, spies become essential to city-state diplomacy. Rigging elections and coups are drastically more powerful when your only other source of influence is a slow tick per turn.

Is it bad, it will force a choice between using those spies on CS, tech stealing or counter-intelligence. And you will never ave enough spies to cover every CS.

Teaching the AI to use this system is much more difficult than the influence bomb units

Unfortunately, yes.

Going back to a model like this (something I toyed with in the early days of CSD development) returns the experience to a 'click next turn' strategy, as there is zero direct civ involvement.

Honestly, is it different in the current CSD?
Click next turn while i amass some gold to buy / build a diplomat
"Oh, i got a diplomat, great, i have something to do"
Click move
Click next turn as diplomat moves to destination
Repeat
That's why i feel CSD failed at it's (very noble goal) : there isn't more interactivity, it's just a different form. Rather than spending money to buy influence, you spend it to buy diplomats who buy influence. You added a small layer of player action, but you didn't change the core of the issue : diplomatic victory has nothing to do with diplomacy.

In terms of AI, specialists are valued based on yields - no yields on a specialist would mean rewriting a significant chunk of specialist code to get the AI to even 'realize' they exist. Also, with consulates, you'd have to get the AI not to overextend and/or generate a 'retraction' mechanic, which would make it hard to catch up to civs with way more influence that you (especially if you can't retract).

On paper it looks fine, but, especially with the AI in mind, a passive model like this breaks down when you consider the level of player interactivity and the nuances of gameplay that would be lost.

G

AI issues are unfortunately probably the biggest stopper here. As for interactivity, what i would like to see would be more interactivity, not less. I mean real interactivity with the CS, and not just sending them waves of units. Doing quests (that shouldn't be just "produce some culture"), long lasting friendly relations, commerce, all of this should be accounted for. You should start building good relations from the day you meet them, rather than start by stealing their workers or bullying them because "no worry, i'll be able to Spam diplomats later".

Well, maybe it's simply impossible to fix diplomacy without rewriting the entire CiV code. I can live with the diplomats system, it's in no way worse than the Vanilla system. I just wish there was something that could be done to make diplomatic victory actually require some diplomacy.