Civic Feedback Requested

[vale]

But a better way to convert excess food when you reach the happy cap is to run a kajillion specialists (scholarship would be the civic of choice for this).

 

[Calavente]

sorry, my mistake...
usually, when I go AV, I use 3 lawIII units on the best cities.. eventually, tower of complacency has alredy been built on a 7th before swapping to AV.
that means for 7cities I have no issues with happiness..(the biggest /meanest cities with the most building mutliplying the commerce) then 1F less (aristocracy) is 1 specialist less. with scholarship it is 4science. to gain 2c. (with casts it is 5science)

with 17 farms and 3mines/pasture as a mean it means losing either 34 or 51 raw science in 7 of your biggest cities.

in other cities, you are obviously right. my mistake...
maybe you have to balance it with gaining some commerce in cities limited by happy cap...

But a better way to convert excess food when you reach the happy cap is to run a kajillion specialists (scholarship would be the civic of choice for this).

the issue we are discuting is that specialists need happies... and (maybe) using aristo and AV makes the better use of happy limited cities

 

[Cadaveres]

After reading this thread, it seems to me that at some point all civics can become useful for certain strategies. The problem comes when two different civics under the same category are useful for the same strategy (and one of them is more powerful on that matter), or when a certain civic is specially boring because it is the same than other civic but changing the buildings that give you +1 Happy.

So instead of madly balancing them by "tweaking" their values, I'd try to add interesting new mechanics to some of them, that are cool and different from each other, so all civics become really different and therefore an option. The cooler mechanics now are the food consumption of sacrifice the weak, combo posiibilities of agriculture & aristocracy, the royal guards of aristocracy, the capturing slaves mechanic from slavery, the draft mechanic of the military state, the extra money from conquest...

Other civics ( Nationhood, Consumption, Social Order... ) do not have such interesting effects, they are just tweaking several values and percentages, so although they can be useful under certain conditions they really don't make a difference. I'd add some flavour-wise mechanics to "boring" civics, so they become really different from others. These are some ideas, but there could certainly be many more:

- Nationhood: +20% strength of units defending a city / -1 to relations with other civs / can produce units at double cost in cities in which the required building is not available
- Social Order: Temporary happiness penalties (due to calabim eating,rushing production <-- I don't think this is posible if your are good, or whatever) lasts one third of the turns.
- Public Healers: Units that start their turn in a city with infirmary get the promotion "Strong health" that increases their maximum hit points to 120 and lasts for three turns (after the unit leaves the city) (or maybe other promotion like "resist poison") / the negative health bonuses due to civics (consumption) or terrain (jungles, flood plains) is neglected / units with the "medic I" promotion get "medic II" promotion when they are built
- Religion: A new missionary unit of the appropiate religion is generated on the founding religion city (if you are the owner) each 10 turns.
- Military discipline: Melee units in a city with a Training Yard have a chance per turn of getting +1 exp, Archer units in a city with an Archery Range, have a chance per turn of getting +1 exp, Mounted units in a city with Stables have a chance per turn of getting +1 exp
- ...

These are just some ideas, what do you think?

 

[xienwolf]

Not too bad of ideas from Cadaveres. I am a great fan of having "gimmick" abilities that are unique to each civic. Because no matter how gimp it might seem on paper, there is always a method somewhere to make it become powerful.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Government

Despotism - I propose to change it to anarchy or something and give despotism some bonuses, 1 happy face for each military unit in city would be perfect, add a later tech with would add another bonus and convert it to Hegemony?

City States - one thing here, this civic is used to maintain a huge empire and that is counter intuitive, a change of name would be needed, the bonuses are OK

God King - OK, nothing to add nor remove

Aristocracy - OK but I use God King more often

Theocracy - weak, I use it rarely but there are times when it is a good option

Republic - a big ZONK here, it just doesnt fit into a fantasy realm were Gods walk the ground, I mean I can see republic in a fantasy world, even in FfH but not with those bonuses like now, the minus to happiness for civilisations without republic is just wrong


Cultural Values

Pacifism - I have tested it with a lower GGP bonus and it still worked fine[but it was in times when agriculture gave +2F], the specialist strats are very powerful even now, now when BtS allows decimals I vote to lower the bonus to 30-40%

Religion - OK, maybe to OK even , I use it for like 75% of the game

Nationhood - OK till you have a religion, when it is off then it is off never to be back, maybe some additional bonus with military strategy/honour/deception?

Social Order - OK

Consumption - the only alternative to religion in late game for me

Liberty - I fought cultural wars without it but I recon it is OK, should not be available for Order nor Octopus Overlords![flavour]

Crusade - never used it but never played a Bannor game till end

Labor

Tribalism - Set upkeep to none, since it doesn't do anything.

Slavery - no problem here but there were nice suggestions in this thread, on huge maps were wars are BIG slaves come in big amounts, it is sometimes annoying I use them then as decoys

Arete - OK, always as Runes

Military State - OK for a civic but I do not get the hurry with gold option, change it to something else, I also do not know if it should be in 'Labor', isn't that a form of keeping your government?

Serfdom - never use it, at that time improvements aren't so important and I have groups of workers speed building my mines and other stuff

Caste System - little late in tech tree but OK

Guilds - nope, never use it

Economy

Decentralization - the name is misleading, decentralisation can give big commercial and cultural effect with the right set of laws, change name to 'Barter' and change cost to none.

Agriculture - 95% of my game is under agriculture, food is very strong in FfH, beside that the other civic from Economy are crap!

Conquest - ok but rarely used, only for Lanun when he goes to war and the map is water heavy

Mercantilism - should be ok but agriculture is to neat to be abandoned

Foreign Trade - what with the gold penalty? maybe math shows that your saldo is positive but who will calculate it while in game? intuitively the bonuses cancel each other out, add war wearynes penalty and +1 happy face to city for every open border agreement or some other incentive to make peace in the world and lots of trade agreaments

Guardian of Nature - the only alternative to agriculture, OK

Compassion

Sacrifice the Weak - perfect

Fend for Themselves - Ok, I use it especially now when we have galloping inflation, health is not a problem in higher difficulty games

Basic Care - Ok

Protect the Meek - Ok, little dull

Public Healers - Ok, dull

Education

No School System - Ok

Apprenticeship - very good for start, strangely it is better that military discipline for making military units, the production penalty is small compared to the XP, very nice with other XP giving civics and buildings [I think I had 12XP for my melle units just when they were build, a veteran army from the start is sweat], to be flavour consistent I would give the XP only to arcane and divine units, balance the change with some economical bonus [towns give minimum 1 hammer?]

Military Discipline - mover the XP bonus from Apprenticeship for melle, archery, siege and mounted units here [yes, no reckon units ], without it I will never switch here, XP for your units is like food your economy

Religious Discipline - no unlimited priests! add another priest for each temple but not unlimited priests for the sake of the One! also the science bunus is doubled with sholarship, change it to culture bonus here or there

Scholarship - to similar to Religious Discipline, see for the culture change above


Overall I would make slavery an open for all civic [little weaker than now] and add an education civic for OO, something like 'Live your Dream' [allows 3 and only 3 specialist of every kind in every citywith OO regardless of any building, can reinsert slaves into city pop, access to all improvements, upkeep: none]

 

[westamastaflash]

I'd suggest having Slavery do more than just +1 to a Quarry. How about +1 to Windmills and Watermills, and +1 from workshops?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I believe vale made it extremely clear why the aristocracy civic does not need a boast, as well as how it works when you base a strategy around it. I also understand that specialist economies are difficult to understand. My take is that this is a perfect example of newbies critizing civic balance just because they don't know how to use it. Just be careful when the counter hits 40.

What's wrong with late civics being more powerful? You need to specialise anyway, whether it be military, machinery, magic, religion. Why can't "civics" be in the list? Rather than too strong, I feel that the republic civic's unhapiness peanlty is too mild, especially since you're giving up city states.

 

[Calavente]

Rather than too strong, I feel that the republic civic's unhapiness peanlty is too mild, especially since you're giving up city states.

I don't understand your logic : you feel that going republic is bad so you need a compensation. for that you propose that the unhappy are more important when you don't have rep ???
that means only that you are forced earlier to go toward rep.
the complain is that republic is not a really good civic by itself. it's only bonus is to negates a malus. increasing the malus will not make republic better, just less avoidable. it would remove freedom for players.
a solution would be that republic is made more powerful or with less penalty if you don't have it..

 

[Randolph]

Vale, Great analysis, I came to a lot of the same conclusions thinking about this after I posted. You can certainly set up situations where using Aristocracy will be Pereto superior to “not Aristocracy.” The down side of Aristocracy isn’t commerce optimization, but a limitation of non-commerce cities. If you specialize cities, as I certainly do, then specialist/great person cities and production/military cities are both inferior under Aristocracy (reduces ability to maximize food or hammers). It’s hard to say which is “better,” but I can see why Aristocracy can annoy me, as it tends to mess up my grand plans of city specialization.

 

[vale]

(maybe) using aristo and AV makes the better use of happy limited cities

Just did the math on it and I was surprised to learn that Aristocracy + Specialists beats just specialists in that context even with all the specialist boosting civics. So we can safely remove the maybe, but now the opportunity cost of not running city states or another civic becomes more relevant since it isn't that much better.

Someone asked me to post the math so here goes:

First let me make it clear: I am making a few assumptions. First, that the health cap is higher than the happy cap (so you truly only need one food to support each population). This assumption is ok, because if it does not hold that weights things in Aristocracy's favor. Second, that the food tiles we are working are non-riverside grassland farms. The most troublesome one is that the difference in GPP is negligible, one I am forced to make because at this late stage in the game, the value of a GPP can vary wildly from game to game depending on your early game GP production. Again, it is not a perfect simulation, but its a jumping off point.

To continue, let us assume we wish to stagnate at a population of x. So to feed this population we will need to provide x food, 2 of which is coming from the center tile, so we will need to work enough farms to produce x-2 food. In the case of Aristocracy, that is (x-2)/4 farms, while in other case that is (x-2)/5 farms. The remainder of the population will be assigned as scientists who produce 5 beakers per turn (3x+2)/4 under aristocracy, (4x+2)/5 otherwise.

Total "commerce" under Aristocracy thus works out to be (17x+6)/4 and 4x+2 if otherwise. The former is greater than the latter whenever x>2.

I was also asked about cities under the happy cap. Basically you could redo the analysis above but instead of saying we want to produce x-2 food with our tiles, we could say we want to produce y food with our tiles. As long as y is less than 4x (assuming abundant grasslands), both models can reach the goal and Aristocracy will out-commerce its counterpart. Where non-Aristocracy wins in this model is that it can super-specialize itself into a full-growth mode, with a possible 5x food available on its tiles. So it can get itself to the happy cap quicker, albeit while sacrificing tons of commerce in the meantime.

I think overall though, the slight benefits in commerce that Aristocracy enjoys at that point in the game are outweighed by the gains that other available civics offer (specifically super-low maintenance with City States or better GPP production with Republic).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

You do understand my logic, you just don't agree with my idea(s) !

In case I haven't made my point very clear: later civics should be more powerful than earlier civics, because you made effort to research a piece of technology to unlock it. Not always, but most of the time.

It's the civic-equivalent of maceman versus warriors: since warriors are so much cheaper than maceman (6 warriors vs. 1 maceman), until you have mithril weapons, sometimes you want masses of warriors instead, as with iron weapons, it's 5 strength versus 7 (or 8, forgot). What's the point in going the bronze working --> smelting --> iron working path?

Similarly, if people do not feel that republic is superior to city states most of the time, what's the point of focusing on the currency --> taxation --> guilds path? Fine, if increasing the unhapiness penalty doesn't work, give it another ability. My logic on the relative power of civics stay.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, following your same argument though Sylvan, earlier Civics should be capable of becoming more powerful without upgrading to the later ones, depending on strategy. That is what most people are aiming for.

True, the civics which are used the most (in the more powerful strategies) ought to come later in the tech tree. But what Kael and crew want to avoid is a setup where EVERYONE will use the final level civics every game (like in Vanilla Civ, even though sometimes only by brute force of the UN).


And as I said "following your logic" we can have 2 neighbor civilizations that really want to go to war. One bum rushes the Tech tree to get Axemen, but the other pumps out warriors and scours the map to find copper and iron. End result can wind up in the favor of the warriors because, even though using an earlier unit, they are using OTHER game mechanics to inflate the power of them.


True, later on that player will probably use some gold from pillaging to upgrade to Axemen... but that is the problem with any analogy

 

[nealhunt]

Deleted.

I think Aristocracy should be left alone. It's situationally useful (occasionally superior in certain optimal conditions). Tinkering to make it more broadly useful is likely to make it unbalanced in its current niche and won't add much to the game experience.

==

I think a discussion of the Ag/Aristo economy (AAE) in comparison to SE and CE is probably a good topic for a separate thread.

 

[xienwolf]

I just had an idea for a new Civic I wouldn't mind seeing:

It has always bugged me that you are rewarded for spreading your religion, but historically many religions have been rather secluded. So I propose:

New Religion Field Civic:

Chosen People:
Requires: Holy City of State Religion
Religion does not spread outside of cultural Borders
+2 Happy in all cities
+10% Production in all Cities

Additionally: The Religious Holy City Wonder includes:
If Chosen People:
+25% Food
+30% Gold



Alternative Implementation:
Chosen People:
Requires: Holy City of State Religion
+2 culture for YOUR CIVILIZATION in all cities with Religion
+1 Happy in all cities
+20% production with Temple (not the wonder, the one in each city)



Haven't tried to think in terms of balance yet, wanted to get the idea out there and let people with more time in the game pick it apart for a bit

 

[Randolph]

m
I think a discussion of the Ag/Aristo economy (AAE) in comparison to SE and CE is probably a good topic for a separate thread.

I see where you're comming from, but the relative power of the various economy driving mechanics is intimately intertwined with civics.

From the conversation so far it seems that aristocracy is just about right, two what extent that it's too powerful it's only because of the lack of sufficient opportunity costs from the alternatives. Farm/specialist economics also seems to get plenty of love from civics, namely from agriculture and the various "unlimited X specialist" civics. Cottages on the other hand get very little from the current civics, particularly compared to vanilla CIV where they receive: +1 hammer/town, +2 commerce/town & village, and +100% growth rate.

I imagine the lack of cottage-love is probably out of a fear that it would overpower Elven cottages in (ancient) forests. But it would be unfortunate if fact were to underpower cottage strategies for the rest of the civs. Some ways to get around this might be: 1) give the bonuses only to normal and not “elven” cottages, 2) nerf elven cottages in some way, perhaps slowing their growth rate (which would also make sense due to the long lives of elves), 3) tie the bonuses to a non-fellowship religion-specific civic (slavery probably needs the most love, although the logic for a town bonus might be dubious), 4) tie it to a civic which competes with guardians of nature. I’m sure other people have plenty of other good ideas.

It would be nice to see some of the cottage improving mechanics from vanilla return to FFH.

 

[nealhunt]

I just assumed it was to enforce a more rural setting. To me, the extra food from Ancient Forests and a farm is more synergistic than forest/cottage. That's definitely one of the optimized AAE setups.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Although I have no idea if it is possible, I would really like it if the Arete civic allowed your cities to work the impassible peak tiles (which should be made to at least provide a couple of hammers). That only seems appropriate, given that "arete" means a sharp mountain ridge (from the Old French for "spine" or "fishbone", not its homograph from the Greek for "that which is good." Although I suppose either word could work, the first seems more closely tied to the element of earth). It might also be good if it would grant extra happiness per peak in the city radius.

In a synergy similar to that of Elven Workers and Guardians of Nature, Dwarven Workers (I'd prefer if it were any unit with the dwarven racial promotion, but that might be over powered) should be able to move through peaks and build some improvements there (mines to harvest gems, gold, copper, iron, and mithril, and quarries for marble, which should all either be made far more plentiful in peaks than other types of terrain, or have a higher chance of being discovered there. It might also be nice if they could build pastures on a new (mountain) goats resource, which could partially make up for the lack of food in mountainous regions. They would also need to be able to build roads to connect the resources, of course.)

I mentioned this recently in the Balance Feedback thread when I was complaining that the flames spawned in hell terrain prevent everyone, even the Infernals, from working their tiles. There should also be a way for civ's whose workers would be fire resistant, i.e., barbs, Clan, and Infernals, to work these tiles. I guess it could be intrinsic to the civ, to a civ-specific building, but if (I realize this is a big if) you are going to add code that allows a civic to make certain impassible tiles workable, then it would be a grat addition to Sacrifice the Weak. That would actually give Hyborem a reason to use the AV religious civic (which is usually a poor choice for him because his cities don't use food, but which he should still want other civs to adopt. As him, I usually choose this civic only so I can bully others to do the same, then capture their cities once they have decent populations.), and it fits reasonably well thematically; only those who are willing to sacrifice their weaker citizens would send them to work burning tiles. Since flames are so common in hell, this bonus could be more important halving the food per citizen, at least in some cities.

 

[xienwolf]

Along the same idea of the Dwarves being able to mine in numerous locations, is it possible to set the framework for a "Production Heavy" counter-strategy to the presiding "Food Heavy" strategies?

If you could make a civic allow a mine to be built on ANY tile, not just hills, and then allow some other Civics (like Arete) make Mines more productive (maybe one which allows Nature lovers to find and eat Moss, thus granting a food bonus to mines?).

I'd just love to see it so that with the proper Civic choices you can have your empire mass producing food, Commerce, or Hammers. Ideally it would be possible to mix/match between them to make a powerful balance, but realistically it shouldn't be designed with that in mind, just be a nice bonus if it can be done.

 

[Randolph]

I just assumed it was to enforce a more rural setting. To me, the extra food from Ancient Forests and a farm is more synergistic than forest/cottage. That's definitely one of the optimized AAE setups.

That's a good point, I have tended to shy away from farms because I'm generally running agriculture in the early part of the game, and I don't want to loose the forest hammer. But since you are probably going to be running Guardians of Nature latter on, that's not going to be an issue.

Regardless, all the more reason to give a boost to cottages. I don't see how the setting is hurt by cottages, in fact they have some of the best religion specific graphics (I love the OO towns).

Maybe republic could be a good place to add +1 hammer/town, as the civic needs something a little more unique, and it parallels the effect of Democracy in vanilla. +1 or 2 commerce for towns (and villages) might fit well in one of the economic civics to balance out the powerful argricluture and gardians civics.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Maybe republic could be a good place to add +1 hammer/town, as the civic needs something a little more unique, and it parallels the effect of Democracy in vanilla.

I kinda like that. There used to be a +1 hammer per town on the Arcane Lore tech, back then cottages were quite strong but that was before Agriculture gave a food boost to farms to counter balance. I think a bonus of some sort to towns could well fit in somewhere now.