Community opinions on yield inflation

[t99KJwEd]

Since the introduction of Congress VP's overall direction has, IMO, become understandably more chaotic, and the only way to get over that is to establish some consensuses for how to go forward.

"Yield inflation" refers to buildings, UAs, improvements etc having unnecessarily strong and/or various yields which forces an upward trend of introducing more and more yields on new changes in order for them to be competitive. Philosophically, is this something worth avoiding? An example of a current anti-inflation proposal is (6-80) Remove dependence on Monument for Border Growth Rate. A larger project on this topic is the AGYRM modmod.

 

[pineappledan]

(6-80) Remove dependence on Monument for Border Growth Rate

This actually is the opposite, because it also reduces the scaling of tile culture costs. The proposal is specifically designed to make the monument roughly as strong as it is now, and makes every source of border growth that isn't the monument relatively stronger (eg. the palace, smokehouse, etc).

An actual example of a proposal that is trying to deflate yields is the Intelligence spy system, which is trying to greatly reduce the amount of yields given by spies.
A second example would be the proposal to reduce the Forge's bonus to mines from 2 to 1

 

[Stalker0]

A second example would be the proposal to reduce the Forge's bonus to mines from 2 to 1

I would counter that example. Proposals that reduce yields but also move those yields earlier in the game (as this one does) I would not consider yield reduction. It could in fact be yield inflation depending on how much earlier the bonuses are moved.

The recent GAP reducer proposals are likely the best pure example of a yield reduction proposal.

 

[pineappledan]

I would counter that example. Proposals that reduce yields but also move those yields earlier in the game (as this one does) I would not consider yield reduction. It could in fact be yield inflation depending on how much earlier the bonuses are moved.

The original proposal was just to reduce the bonus to mines to 1, straight up. No other changes.
You're referencing a counterproposal that I made which is a good deal more complex. Not only does it move the yields earlier, but it also adds an extra 1 to mines onto a pantheon, so it's not strictly removing yields, just putting them in different places.

 

[t99KJwEd]

I don't agree that the Monument proposal is opposing. Yes it's raising the base power level, but in a systemic way instead of a specific one - it's increasing the value of BGP, which would be the opposite of inflation. The system balance has to be rooted somewhere; whether it's relatively buffed or nerfed is only as relevant to yield distribution as it necessarily has to be. My (maybe erroneous) logic was that I don't see reducing yield inflation and plain nerfs as the same thing, and I didn't want to pick a proposal that confused them.

 

[rkkn]

This actually is the opposite, because it also reduces the scaling of tile culture costs. The proposal is specifically designed to make the monument roughly as strong as it is now, and makes every source of border growth that isn't the monument relatively stronger (eg. the palace, smokehouse, etc)

the value is only increased for new cities. it's the same as before for any city that has a monument
I would not call that inflation

 

[Rosete]

I used to think that yield inflation was a problem. But now I'm of the opinion that it can be beneficial to have a lot of yield as higher numbers allow for more leeway in balancing. If everything has a very low value, then any changes +-1 will have a very large impact. If yields are much larger, then balance can be more easily fine-tuned.

My only pet peeve is that the tech in game never really lines up with the in game clock.

 

[azum4roll]

Pantheons and other early game components are already a pain to balance since you can't further nerf +1 yield without removing it. We should probably multiply everything by 10 if this game isn't 32-bit and has a low integer cap (using 64-bit integers massively hurts performance).

 

[Rekk]

Multiplying everything by 10 will make the map look awful.

 

[CppMaster]

Or inaccurate if 1 symbol would mean 10 yields for numbers other than 10.

 

[tu_79]

Yield inflation is in the spirit of Civ V, which rewards players with a moar, moar, gameplay.

 

[der_weihnachtsmann]

Yield inflation is a problem in games, because it makes the individual bonuses seem insignificant. This reduces the impact and reward of the gameplay. I think the root cause of this problem is feature bloat, which adds too many unnecessary bonuses. A possible solution is to remove the smaller bonuses that do not make a difference anyway. Everytime I go back to vanilla it has this very easy to understand and straightforward feel, which is the thing i miss most about it in the mods.

 

[Rekk]

A possible solution is to remove the smaller bonuses that do not make a difference anyway

Do you have examples?

 

[smorgasborgas]

One enormous source of yields in the first Era is barbarian kill yields with Raging Barbarians. Currently it feels like >70% of yields come from barbs. Also I use Unique City States, where each CS gives some quite large boost. Currently all boosts from all sources seem like 'no-brainers' in the sense that there is only upsides to attaining them. One no-brainer that was recently removed is the gifting units to city-states, if the gold reward was equal to or even greater than the cost of the unit then obviously you should gift the unit, so then it just becomes a chore. No-brainers in games I think tend to turn into chores, because they always makes sense to do but still requires the player to do it.

But with so many buildings and religious/cultural/civ/cs sources for yields, it is too large a task to manually balance each one. And mixing and matching mods can really make balancing an impossible task.

***Proposed solution to reducing yields in an objective way: Net Neutral (plus era bonus) buildings and policies

• The net gain of yields of any building must be Net Zero (plus some era addition). Meaning, a +3 Science yield should also have a -3 faith yield (or -2 gold and -1 food, etc). The era addition can be +3 science +1/era, -3 faith.
• Yield synergy with other buildings, so each yield can scale more than linearly but only if the city specializes. E.g. University gives an extra + .3 Yield Mult if a Library is also in the city)
• Cities would have a (Base Yield 1 + Base Yield 3 + Base Yield (-2) + ... ) * ( 1 + (Yield mult 0.1 x Yield Mult 0.3 x ... ) )
  • this would mean a drop of Base Yield from a building would have exponential effects, e.g. a Temple might reduce base science by -2.

This is a major change, but I would like to see 3 things come out of this:

1. Slower progress through each age

• a full length war should comfortably fit in each era (in marathon)
• E.g. caravels seem to only exist for a few turns, each era of units should be around for a while

2. More specialization

• each city having almost every building makes city management a chore (since each building is almost a no-brainer unless you are in a gold crunch)
• this way you can have military training cities, industrial cities, cultural cities, science, etc...

3. Reduce number of no-brainers

• "A factory would help me build armored units faster in my Culture City, but will greatly reduce my culture" so I can't just build one since I happen to have the coal, I would also need to be at war to justify turning a Culture City into a Production City, and then it might make sense to sell the factory after the war.

Difficulties: AI might not be able to design strategies using greedy methods. Respeccing costs of all buildings and units.

 

[tu_79]

I disagree. Every option is a boost, yes, but it also carries a cost of oportunity. If you boost your culture, you might not be boosting your military size, which may prove critical in the following turns.
Even if you think it's hard to balance early and late game, much much effort has been put into it. There are very few no brainer options. Tons of gameplay hours have been used for balance, and it is still in progress, which makes the balance even more fine.
There can be no balance like in Starcraft, because much freedom is given to the player who may choose to play with Raging barbarians, thus altering the balance for normal aggression. If you play an archipielago map, obviously maritime civs are going to be overpowered. You cannot balance that. But you may rise difficulty if you think you are playing unfairly.

Try with any other 4x game, play it long enough to find exploits, and you will not get anyone fixing that 'no brainer' gameplay.

 

[smorgasborgas]

Thank you for reading my post! I am not holding my breath waiting for these changes, but I would like to have certain things be modifiable using the config files (especially barbarian yields).

Also in regards to your post, I'm not talking about Starcraft balance, in fact I don't think anyone in the whole thread mentioned inter-civ balance. I'm talking about 25 turn Renaissance Eras with great scientists and almost every city having almost every building. I think this style of play being possible (not only possible, but standard) even at high difficulties undermines the spirit of the game. I think ideally, choosing whether or not to build a factory in a cultural city would be the CORE of the gameplay for this type of game.
[I will say that much tighter resource requirements would also help achieve the existence of real choices, as long as there are fair and balanced opportunities to acquire the resources]

Also at the end you seem to be positing that balance 'cannot exist' (paraphrasing) using an example like Raging Barbarians. But why can't I then specify the actual yields from barbarians? If there are 8 times as many barbs, then the barbarian yield can be 1/8. There. Impossible balance achieved.

 

[FinMc]

One enormous source of yields in the first Era is barbarian kill yields with Raging Barbarians. Currently it feels like >70% of yields come from barbs. Also I use Unique City States, where each CS gives some quite large boost. Currently all boosts from all sources seem like 'no-brainers' in the sense that there is only upsides to attaining them. One no-brainer that was recently removed is the gifting units to city-states, if the gold reward was equal to or even greater than the cost of the unit then obviously you should gift the unit, so then it just becomes a chore. No-brainers in games I think tend to turn into chores, because they always makes sense to do but still requires the player to do it.

But with so many buildings and religious/cultural/civ/cs sources for yields, it is too large a task to manually balance each one. And mixing and matching mods can really make balancing an impossible task.

***Proposed solution to reducing yields in an objective way: Net Neutral (plus era bonus) buildings and policies

• The net gain of yields of any building must be Net Zero (plus some era addition). Meaning, a +3 Science yield should also have a -3 faith yield (or -2 gold and -1 food, etc). The era addition can be +3 science +1/era, -3 faith.
• Yield synergy with other buildings, so each yield can scale more than linearly but only if the city specializes. E.g. University gives an extra + .3 Yield Mult if a Library is also in the city)
• Cities would have a (Base Yield 1 + Base Yield 3 + Base Yield (-2) + ... ) * ( 1 + (Yield mult 0.1 x Yield Mult 0.3 x ... ) )
  • this would mean a drop of Base Yield from a building would have exponential effects, e.g. a Temple might reduce base science by -2.

This is a major change, but I would like to see 3 things come out of this:

1. Slower progress through each age

• a full length war should comfortably fit in each era (in marathon)
• E.g. caravels seem to only exist for a few turns, each era of units should be around for a while

2. More specialization

• each city having almost every building makes city management a chore (since each building is almost a no-brainer unless you are in a gold crunch)
• this way you can have military training cities, industrial cities, cultural cities, science, etc...

3. Reduce number of no-brainers

• "A factory would help me build armored units faster in my Culture City, but will greatly reduce my culture" so I can't just build one since I happen to have the coal, I would also need to be at war to justify turning a Culture City into a Production City, and then it might make sense to sell the factory after the war.

Difficulties: AI might not be able to design strategies using greedy methods. Respeccing costs of all buildings and units.

I think this idea is incredibly cool and really creative. I think implementing it would be such a large overhaul it would essentially be an entirely different, almost Vox Populi sized mod on its own.

Having more specialized cities would be really cool though, I like that

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I've long accepted/ accustomed to power/ yield creep for VP. *insert clown makeup image here*

 

[tu_79]

You would need to create a different game with a different balance for every type of scenario.

For example, you would need to reduce the yields from barbarians only for the games with the option 'raging barbarians'. Or include a new mechanic that reduces yields coming from the same source repetitively.
This is what the happiness mechanic is trying to do:to punish players that are too focused on one playstyle, forcing them to diversify.
And diplomacy also takes care of civs that become unfairly powerful.

 

[rkkn]

• The net gain of yields of any building must be Net Zero (plus some era addition). Meaning, a +3 Science yield should also have a -3 faith yield (or -2 gold and -1 food, etc). The era addition can be +3 science +1/era, -3 faith.

giga nerfing buildings just makes conquest the no-brainer btw
if buildings only give a small advantage, then making units is better