CS yield rebalance

[crdvis16]

Some discussion has popped up in the pantheon and Siam threads so I figured it deserved its own post.

The issue:

The yields you get from CS friendly/allied status seem to be out of balance, especially in the early game.

1) Faith from religious CS friendly/allied status is too strong in the early game. Faith is extremely strong early, especially prior to founding so getting lucky with an early religious friend/ally tends to warp the religion race too much.

2) Culture CS yields from friend/ally are too weak in the early game. It's currently 1 culture/turn for friend status which is just silly.

3) Mercantile and Militaristic yields are arguably too weak (1 gold and science for early friends) but this is offset somewhat by happiness and free units. The gold/science could maybe use a slight bump anyway.

4) Maritime CS food yields seem to be OK? No one so far has suggested they are too strong or weak from what I've seen.

Side issue:

Siam's interaction with the above yields is goofy. They are supposed to get +75% to friendly/allied yields. However, the +1 culture/gold/science yields are subjected to a rounding error (I think?) whereby they end up still being just +1/turn. On the other hand, the faith they get from religious friends early is even more warping in their hands- simply meeting a religious CS gives them a pantheon 10 turns later without having to build a shrine. If the base culture/science/gold yields are buffed and the base faith yield is nerfed then perhaps this will also help solve Siam's issue.

I would propose buffing culture yields, slightly buffing militaristic/mercantile science/gold, and nerfing faith yields. Hopefully someone smarter than me can propose appropriate new numbers.

And of course, if people disagree let's hear it!

 

[Stalker0]

I would leave Siam out of this thread, as it will just muddy the waters. Lets focus on what we think core CS yields are.

Personally, the only one that to me is out of whack is the faith CS. Culture is very low its true, but its a very powerful yield, and its good for the vast majority of the game. On the flip side I think faith CS still drop off in usefulness too much, I wish they had more of a second yield that scaled into the late game.

 

[CrazyG]

I'd say that culture needs to be at least 2 for friends. I think 3 is fine (yes sometimes you get really lucky with two quests but I think that's life).

Faith needs to be lower, I generally consider 1 faith to be worth about 1 culture in most games, but sometimes faith has very low value. I think it's less important in the late game but that's life. Also, late game, all CS activate wire services, chanceries and give votes, which is the reason you fight for them.

Military are fine IMO.
Happiness are the most situational just because happiness tends to be worth a lot or very little, depending on your own happiness. I'm fine with the gold going up.

I think food is generally okay but the rounding is weird. It's base friendship of 0.5 food in all cities does nothing (unless you get two friends).


My summary: friend/ally
Faith: 3/5
Culture 3/5
Military: 1/3 (in addition to the units)
Mercantile: 2/4 (this is the gold, I forget how much happiness they give)
Food: IDK exactly

 

[crdvis16]

Does anyone have an easy way to get the base numbers as they currently are? I don't have experience using IGE to see them easily in a game, nor the experience to look at code to figure it out. I'm mostly going off of my recent Siam game to guess what they must be.

I'm fairly certain I was getting 5 faith/turn from ancient friendly status in my Siam game which would make me think the base friendly value is 3/turn currently.

 

[CrazyG]

I'm fairly certain I was getting 5 faith/turn from ancient friendly status in my Siam game which would make me think the base friendly value is 3/turn currently.

Are you sure? In my game I think I saw 5 for friend and 10 for ally.

 

[Stalker0]

Culture 3/5

I think 5 is a little much. That's more than the cultural NW, and it also affects its scaling into medieval era. Meet you in the middle on 4?

 

[CrazyG]

I think 5 is a little much. That's more than the cultural NW, and it also affects its scaling into medieval era. Meet you in the middle on 4?

I'd rather see 2 and 5 than 3 and 4 (the ally status is too minor). Fair compromise?

 

[Cokolwiek]

I'd rather see 2 and 5 than 3 and 4 (the ally status is too minor). Fair compromise?

I sense that would help AI with starting a snowball. Culture is just too powerful of a yield. How about 2 and 4?

 

[tothePAIN]

As Siam, I get 5 faith for friendly status in ancient era - I think its 3/5 right now and don't think its excessive. But I'd have to confirm those numbers. Faith seems strong right now but that's because culture was nerfed too much. Science, Mercantile, and food are fine. Faith should be strong early, I don't care about them mid game or late.

 

[crdvis16]

As Siam, I get 5 faith for friendly status in ancient era - I think its 3/5 right now and don't think its excessive. But I'd have to confirm those numbers. Faith seems strong right now but that's because culture was nerfed too much. Science, Mercantile, and food are fine. Faith should be strong early, I don't care about them mid game or late.

Maybe Siam is bugged and the base faith yields are 5/10 and Siam just gets 5/10 as well?

We probably need someone to figure out the base numbers definitively in order to figure out new ones.

 

[Drakle]

Somewhat out there idea

Combine Faith and Culture into the same type of city-state. I mean centres of faith were often centres of culture as well, and the two abstractions were often one and the same or very closely linked. Or maybe keep both, but they offer both, just more of one than the other.

So
1 Faith and 1 Culture as friends, and 2 culture and 2 faith per ancient city-state wouldn't be that bad. Half a Monument/Shrine as a friend, and then a full one of each as allies.

OR

Tilted either way
So religious CS would be
2 Faith and 1 Culture as friends, and then say 4 faith and 1 culture as an ally. Or 3 faith and 2 Culture.
While Culture CS would be
2 Culture and 1 faith as friends, and then 4 Culture and 1 faith as an ally. Or 3 Culture and 2 Faith

Then scaling up over era, as per normal.


Siam's rounding issue is something different. Maybe just rounding upwards would cover it, which is a bit of a buff as 1 = 2. But maybe another part of their kit can be weakened in exchange, or maybe it works fine with a slight buff. Don't know, have not played them properly yet.

 

[CrazyG]

I found the file that displays them. Sorry I was wrong about faith, they change between ancient and classical, and I was listing the classical era yields. Apparently they are all set separately by era.

It is MinorBonuses.sql
FRIENDS_CULTURE_BONUS_AMOUNT_ANCIENT
First you get this value, which gives a yield and and era.

ALLIES_CULTURE_BONUS_AMOUNT_ANCIENT
I think the two get added together (because I'm 99% sure I saw a cultural CS ally giving 3, which would be 1 + 2, the values in the file).

So converting the file to an easier to read list

Spoiler Culture :

Ancient 1/3
Classical (no change)
Medieval 4/10
Renaissance (no change)
Industrial 10/22

Spoiler Military (the science) :

Ancient 1/4
Classical 2/6
Medieval 4/10
Renaissance 6/14
Industrial 10/20

Spoiler Mercantile (the gold) :

Ancient 1/3
Classical 1/4
Medieval 2/6
Renaissance 3/8
Industrial 4/10

Spoiler Faith :

I'm not sure I'm reading this one correctly, and for no reason i can tell, it's listed in a different part of the file. If it follows the same rules, it should be:
Ancient 3/6
Classical 5/10
Medieval 7/14
Renaissance 9/18
Industrial 12/24

Spoiler Maritime (capital then other city) :

Pre-renaissance ally 6 and 0.5
Pre-renaissance friend 3 and 0.5

Post-renaissance ally 8 and 1.5
Post-renaissance friend 4 and 1.5
I'm not sure how to read the text on food CS so these numbers might not be quite right.

 

[crdvis16]

I think I'd just simplify it across the board to:

Ancient 2/4
Classical 3/6
Medieval 4/8
Renaissance 6/12
Industrial 8/16
Modern 12/24
Atomic 16/32
Information 20/40

I'd include Maritime (food bonuses) in the above but give secondary cities 1/4 the value that the capital is getting (rounding down) rather than the binary 0.5 early and 1.5 late game.

I never understood why CS yields fall off so harshly in later eras so continuing the scaling would alleviate that a little (they probably still don't keep pace with normal yield levels once they balloon in the late game but it's at least closer).

If we used the above maybe militaristic friends would be arguably the strongest since science is a strong yield and they give you units as a bonus? While mercantile civ yields might be the weakest since gold is generally weaker and happiness is a bit more situational? But I think it would be close enough to balanced like this.

Scaling the yields past industrial might be a buff to diplo/statecraft. No idea if that's a problem. I believe the AI currently likes statecraft a lot but no idea if statecraft is actually too strong right now or not.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I'm not a fan of having different types of yields be the same values, some are naturally stronger than others. Having them all tied to the same thing also means fixing one type could create new balance issues with others.

For Culture I like 2/4, as Cokolwiek suggested. I agree faith city-states could maybe use a little nerf, although I'm not sure what the numbers should be. Maybe 2/5 for ancient and 4/8 for classical.

 

[Stalker0]

I never understood why CS yields fall off so harshly in later eras

Mainly because CS become useful in other ways. The chancery + wire service bonuses provide some very strong yield scaling to CS, and their votes become important as the WC comes online.

 

[crdvis16]

I'm not a fan of having different types of yields be the same values, some are naturally stronger than others. Having them all tied to the same thing also means fixing one type could create new balance issues with others.

For Culture I like 2/4, as Cokolwiek suggested. I agree faith city-states could maybe use a little nerf, although I'm not sure what the numbers should be. Maybe 2/5 for ancient and 4/8 for classical.

I wonder how people would rate yield strengths throughout the game. They can be really dynamic/situational so it's hard to do.

Faith is probably the most important in the rush to your pantheon and to found unless you just plan to conquer a religion. After founding it's importance wanes somewhat (though still important for aggressively spreading).

Culture is probably the most consistently important across all eras and playstyles. Same with science though I might personally devalue it slightly in early game when your cities are likely already busy building important buildings and you're unable to take advantage of new unlocks (along with spy mechanics that help you catch up later if you're still behind in mid game).

Gold is generally less important though it can change throughout the game. I actually value gold fairly highly while saving for an initial worker, for instance. It's good that Mercantile CSs give the secondary happiness to help with the gold yields since they are generally less valuable.

Food probably drops off in importance the most. Very early the food helps immensely as each new citizen adds significantly to your production but later as the time left in the game to capitalize on new citizens decreases its value drops. It's also the only yield where you might purposely disable its benefit (lock growth) to avoid negative consequences (unhappiness). This is sort of accounted for since secondary cities get some food from Maritime civs (the wider you are the more yields you actually get).

On top of all this, each yield changes in importance depending on how much of it you already have. If you're leading in culture but behind in science then you might have science outweigh culture until you've caught up. If your lux has a faith monopoly bonus then you might be confident in founding and much less worried about scraping every spare faith you can get.

I kinda think it could work as I laid it out. When I look at those CS yields I don't really see any of them as much stronger than the others. Or any of them being significantly weaker than the others, though it's entirely possible (or probable) that others would rate the yields much differently.

 

[crdvis16]

Mainly because CS become useful in other ways. The chancery + wire service bonuses provide some very strong yield scaling to CS, and their votes become important as the WC comes online.

Good points. Though at the same time, maintaining ally status typically gets harder and requires more investments, too. Other civs are using GDiplomats and dropping your influence, other civs are inflating the allied influence level past the normal 60 points required (into the thousands in late game), some civs choose statecraft instead of other policy trees (there's an opportunity cost there) to have allies, CSs are disappearing from the map, etc. After the early game you typically won't get allies just by accidentally completing quests. I typically don't have many friends and very few allies past the mid game unless I'm purposely working for them and maybe only if I went Statecraft. Compare that to the early game where you'll often grab an ally via quests for doing things you already planned to do.

So one might argue that the benefits from the diplo building line and WC votes are more a result of that increase in difficulty in getting allies and maybe shouldn't be compensation for the CS yields tailing off.

Having said all that, I'm less concerned with the yields increasing through the information age as I am in getting them more balanced between each other.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I'm not a fan of having different types of yields be the same values, some are naturally stronger than others. Having them all tied to the same thing also means fixing one type could create new balance issues with others.

This.

Mainly because CS become useful in other ways. The chancery + wire service bonuses provide some very strong yield scaling to CS

Yeah. Chancery some versions ago was basically a maintenance-free production building, on par with stables or stone works with three tiles. One of the strongest buildings you could have. Eight or ten production? Rightfully nerfed.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I kinda think it could work as I laid it out.

Of course. It could work, and if it did that would be beautiful! It might also not work though, and either way it's not going to happen without thorough debate and discussion.

So right now I'd rather focus on the things that we can agree need tweaking. Leave the things that are in an acceptable state as they are.

 

[crdvis16]

So right now I'd rather focus on the things that we can agree need tweaking. Leave the things that are in an acceptable state as they are.

Probably faith being too high and maybe gold too low in the yields?