JamesNinelives
Emperor
I would have said faith high, culture low.
I value early happiness and the extra luxury that mercantile city-states offer quite highly. I'm not opposed to increasing the gold though!
CS yield rebalance
- Thread starter crdvis16
- Start date
I would have said faith high, culture low.
I value early happiness and the extra luxury that mercantile city-states offer quite highly. I'm not opposed to increasing the gold though!
I would have said faith high, culture low.
I value early happiness and the extra luxury that mercantile city-states offer quite highly. I'm not opposed to increasing the gold though!
Oh right, culture and faith were the main ones out of whack, at least early in the game.
The main issue I see with this approach is military CS. Science is generally about as valuable as culture (it's a lot less valuable in the first ~50 turns or so but CS alliances are rare at that time) and in theory the free units are the main perk of these CS. I'm worried that this thread right now is a bit biased towards not breaking things during the first 100 or so turns of the game. I'm aware that there is an anti-snowballing concern for the early game but CS do need to be rewarding later on; 16 culture in Renaissance for an ally isn't that significant.
Ok, what does everyone think of:
For culture:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/8 (was 1/3)
Medieval 5/12 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 4/10)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 10/22)
It's significantly buffed to be useful early (because right now there seems to be consensus that 1 for an early friend is pathetic) and then somewhat buffed from then on. CrazyG mentioned that maybe it needs to be buffed more in later eras as well (Renaissance onward)?
For faith
Ancient 2/6 (was 3/6)
Classical 2/6 (was 5/10)
Medieval 4/10 (was 7/14)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 9/18)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 12/24)
Nerfed throughout. IMO the early faith is definitely too high when faith is super valuable. It's also too high late currently I think- your faith/turn scales very slowly compared to things like culture/science/gold/food so a religious CS alliance would be a very large buff to your faith output percentage wise. I didn't realize how high those later era yields currently were.
For science:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/4)
Classical 2/6 (was 2/6)
Medieval 4/10 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 6/14)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 10/20)
Basically the same except a slight buff in Ancient when science is perhaps at its least valuable. It's slightly less than culture's yields because it comes with those free units.
For gold:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/3)
Classical 2/6 (was 1/4)
Medieval 4/10 (was 2/6)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 3/8)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 4/10)
Buffed throughout to at least match science's yields. I guess the logic is that gold<science but happiness>free units? I'm not sure I entirely agree but I'm hesitant to propose buffing it even more and rock the boat too much. I had no idea how pathetic gold yields were from CSs.
For food (this is keeping it the same):
Ancient/Classical/Medieval 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Renaissance+ 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
No one has really said that the food rewards are out of whack.
Note that in the above, faith/science/gold end up having equal reward values (though gold and science come with their happy/unit bonuses). Culture is slightly higher than those 3 and food is its own weird thing.
For culture:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/8 (was 1/3)
Medieval 5/12 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 4/10)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 10/22)
It's significantly buffed to be useful early (because right now there seems to be consensus that 1 for an early friend is pathetic) and then somewhat buffed from then on. CrazyG mentioned that maybe it needs to be buffed more in later eras as well (Renaissance onward)?
For faith
Ancient 2/6 (was 3/6)
Classical 2/6 (was 5/10)
Medieval 4/10 (was 7/14)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 9/18)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 12/24)
Nerfed throughout. IMO the early faith is definitely too high when faith is super valuable. It's also too high late currently I think- your faith/turn scales very slowly compared to things like culture/science/gold/food so a religious CS alliance would be a very large buff to your faith output percentage wise. I didn't realize how high those later era yields currently were.
For science:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/4)
Classical 2/6 (was 2/6)
Medieval 4/10 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 6/14)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 10/20)
Basically the same except a slight buff in Ancient when science is perhaps at its least valuable. It's slightly less than culture's yields because it comes with those free units.
For gold:
Ancient 2/6 (was 1/3)
Classical 2/6 (was 1/4)
Medieval 4/10 (was 2/6)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 3/8)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 4/10)
Buffed throughout to at least match science's yields. I guess the logic is that gold<science but happiness>free units? I'm not sure I entirely agree but I'm hesitant to propose buffing it even more and rock the boat too much. I had no idea how pathetic gold yields were from CSs.
For food (this is keeping it the same):
Ancient/Classical/Medieval 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Renaissance+ 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
No one has really said that the food rewards are out of whack.
Note that in the above, faith/science/gold end up having equal reward values (though gold and science come with their happy/unit bonuses). Culture is slightly higher than those 3 and food is its own weird thing.
I agree that I often do not focus too hard on allies late game, and if I am its only through Spheres of Influence (I normally try to get the ones right near me as they make potent allies, or terrible enemies if they turn on me).
Friendships are not too hard to maintain with some diplo work, you just have to send a diplomatic unit every so often to repair a friendship that was taken by a GD. Ultimately those friendships still give a lot of bonuses with chancery + wire service, so well worth a little maintenance.
JamesNinelives
Emperor
I always have a couple of allies because I want to guard my borders and having to fight a city-state that belongs to someone else instead of the person I actually want to hurt is just annoying.
At the very least though, I tend to have lots of friends! As @Stalker0 mentions they aren't that difficult to maintain and with the yields from diplo buildings it's usually worthwhile!
At the very least though, I tend to have lots of friends! As @Stalker0 mentions they aren't that difficult to maintain and with the yields from diplo buildings it's usually worthwhile!
AndreyK
King
I always play on large maps with 24-28 CS, so their yields are very important. This is very interesting discussion thread, I would say that science don't need buff, may be even slight nerf. It's very important yield and in the beginning of game cost of techs is low versus tenets. I think that happiness from mercantile CS friends must differ from allies - it's most important yield - may be 1 and 3. Also we may set it in Industrial and later 2 and 5.
May be even make happiness scale throughout game
May be even make happiness scale throughout game
JamesNinelives
Emperor
I just played a game as Arabia where the difference between me founding and not founding was literally a city-state alliance. I recieved a pretty easy CS quest from a religious city-state: find England. The reward was some science and 70 influence! Now, England was overseas but one of their recon units had embarked on my landmass so I knew there were somewhere West of me. Unfortunately I landed upon the wrong shore, and met the Shoshone instead of the English. All was not lost however, as I was pretty confident where to go now.
However, as I've noted in the main thread the AI seem to be excelling at fouding early at the moment and this game was no exception. There were only 2 religions left but I thought I could make it. At which point China allied the same faith city-state that I was gunning for and founded on turn 136, despite not having any other obvious advantages to religion. Their monopoly was silk but they hadn't reached monopoly status yet, their initial policy choice was Authority, and their pantheon was Renewal.
I've played a lot of games on this patch, difficulty, and setting and haven't founded often so far so I can't say I was expecting a win. But I had a strong start, got some nice early ruins including a faith ruin that gave me an early pantheon, and met some nearby city states so I was hoping this would be one of the good games. Seeing China ally that religious city-state (with something like 120 influence) such that even if I completed the quest they had offered my they would still be getting 5 faith more than my per turn from them - I have to say, I'm a little sour about that.
For context, the other civs that founded were Tradition Ethiopia with Home, Authority Spain with Expanse, Tradition Korea with Purity and a Tobacco Monopoly, Tradition England with Tutelary Gods, Progress Aztecs with Craftsmen, and Progress Indonesia with Festivals and Incense but no monopoly yet.
50 turns later later I'm allied with both religious city-states and generating 72 faith per turn. I've almost finished building Angkor Wat. But none of that matters now lol. I decided to adopt Ethiopia's religion because I have nothing to do with my faith, and the culture and gold I get from purchasing missionaries with Veneration are much stronger than anything else on offer.
However, as I've noted in the main thread the AI seem to be excelling at fouding early at the moment and this game was no exception. There were only 2 religions left but I thought I could make it. At which point China allied the same faith city-state that I was gunning for and founded on turn 136, despite not having any other obvious advantages to religion. Their monopoly was silk but they hadn't reached monopoly status yet, their initial policy choice was Authority, and their pantheon was Renewal.
I've played a lot of games on this patch, difficulty, and setting and haven't founded often so far so I can't say I was expecting a win. But I had a strong start, got some nice early ruins including a faith ruin that gave me an early pantheon, and met some nearby city states so I was hoping this would be one of the good games. Seeing China ally that religious city-state (with something like 120 influence) such that even if I completed the quest they had offered my they would still be getting 5 faith more than my per turn from them - I have to say, I'm a little sour about that.
For context, the other civs that founded were Tradition Ethiopia with Home, Authority Spain with Expanse, Tradition Korea with Purity and a Tobacco Monopoly, Tradition England with Tutelary Gods, Progress Aztecs with Craftsmen, and Progress Indonesia with Festivals and Incense but no monopoly yet.
Spoiler :
50 turns later later I'm allied with both religious city-states and generating 72 faith per turn. I've almost finished building Angkor Wat. But none of that matters now lol. I decided to adopt Ethiopia's religion because I have nothing to do with my faith, and the culture and gold I get from purchasing missionaries with Veneration are much stronger than anything else on offer.
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This idea strikes me as being right on point: the faith and culture are also reflected in architecture itself. Conversely, our present culture seems to be obsessed with square or pointy buildings.
Since this is getting attention in the main patch thread, does anyone have feedback on the last suggestion quoted above? I tried to take into account feedback so maybe it's not far off from a consensus?
Comments in bold.
The biggest benefactor from ancient CS friend/ally yields is Siam, who gets a +75% bonus to CS yields.
Since yields are always rounded down, a base 2 yield is 3 times as good as a base 1 yield for Siam, and you can't really make it 2 for him.
1 faith per turn (base 1) is way too low as an early bonus.
At 3 faith per turn (base 2), Siam gets 30 faith from meeting a non-hostile religious CS, which increases by 45 faith for a nearby barbarian kill, and A LOT MORE for 2 barbarian kills because that'd bring it to ally status. The faith from meeting seems balanced, but the barbarian yields clearly don't.
What if barbarian kill influence is lowered (to 10 probably?), but it scales by era? That would make killing barbarians useful at later ages too.
Since yields are always rounded down, a base 2 yield is 3 times as good as a base 1 yield for Siam, and you can't really make it 2 for him.
1 faith per turn (base 1) is way too low as an early bonus.
At 3 faith per turn (base 2), Siam gets 30 faith from meeting a non-hostile religious CS, which increases by 45 faith for a nearby barbarian kill, and A LOT MORE for 2 barbarian kills because that'd bring it to ally status. The faith from meeting seems balanced, but the barbarian yields clearly don't.
What if barbarian kill influence is lowered (to 10 probably?), but it scales by era? That would make killing barbarians useful at later ages too.
Barbarian kill influence is generally annoying. You constantly have to play a guessing game on damaging barbarians so you can be sure to get the kill, and not another civ or the city-state. And herding the barbarians in so they are near enough to get influence.
I'd prefer it if damaging barbarians grants influence. X points of influence for every 5 or 10 damage done. Capping at 100, so we don't have overflow and healing. And increase the range, while reducing the influence generally.
ICanHasName?
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 272
Influence per damage makes some sense.
the sustainable harvesting of barbarians would remain, although the DOTA style last hitting of units with your scout would be at least be gone. It would be weird to shoot a unit and not get any influence because it had ran back and healed up 10 turns ago.
the sustainable harvesting of barbarians would remain, although the DOTA style last hitting of units with your scout would be at least be gone. It would be weird to shoot a unit and not get any influence because it had ran back and healed up 10 turns ago.
Incorporating @CrazyG 's suggestions:
For culture:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/8 (was 1/3)
Medieval 5/12 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 4/10)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 10/22)
Culture is buffed because it seems like there is decent consensus that it's weak currently.
For faith
Ancient 2/4 (was 3/6)
Classical 3/8 (was 5/10)
Medieval 5/12 (was 7/14)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 9/18)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 12/24)
Faith is nerfed because it seems there is decent consensus that it's too strong currently.
For science:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/4)
Classical 3/6 (was 2/6)
Medieval 4/10 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 6/14)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 10/20)
Slightly buffed early game, overall lower yields than culture/faith because of those free military units.
For gold:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/6 (was 1/4)
Medieval 4/10 (was 2/6)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 3/8)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 4/10)
Slightly buffed early game and significantly buffed later game (where it is currently incredibly weak IMO). Overall lower yields than culture/faith because of the free happiness, equal yields to militaristic CSs. Still might be the weakest CS yield just because gold is usually worth less than science/culture but maybe the happiness makes up for it enough? I guess I could buy that happiness is stronger than free military units.
For food:
WAS:
Ancient/Classical/Medieval 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Renaissance+ 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
NEW:
Ancient/Classical 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Medieval/Renaissance 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
Industrial+ 5/10 (2.5 to secondary cities)
Slight buff in Medieval, buff in Industrial+.
I wouldn't be opposed to it but others seemed happy with the scaling stopping and letting CS importance be more about votes than yields in late game. In the interest of getting a consensus I figured I'd just leave that part be.
I certainly had Siam in the back of my mind when proposing these changes, as the ancient/classical yields from CSs become glaringly apparent with him. I think the above changes would make his game feel better now that he'd be able to actually use his 75% yield increase on all those yields that used to be just 1 in Ancient. Right now, finding Mercantile, Culture, and Militaristic CSs in Ancient is like "Meh" while finding a Religious CS is totally game warping for him. With these changes I think it would feel a lot more balanced across the board (I might still be sort of "Meh" about finding Mercantile CSs but it's at least a little better).
I think a free 30 faith from finding a religious CS early isn't so terrible. Siam still has to build a shrine to get the rest of the way to a pantheon, and religious CSs tend to be the least common type I think? If you're able to get some barbarian kills or some other means of gaining extra influence (donating a warrior) then more power to you- at least you did something to earn it. You probably had to send your initial warrior and pathfinder over to ensure the kill which means you left your capital open to barbarian attack so it's not without cost or risk.
For culture:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/8 (was 1/3)
Medieval 5/12 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 4/10)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 10/22)
Culture is buffed because it seems like there is decent consensus that it's weak currently.
For faith
Ancient 2/4 (was 3/6)
Classical 3/8 (was 5/10)
Medieval 5/12 (was 7/14)
Renaissance 8/16 (was 9/18)
Industrial+ 12/26 (was 12/24)
Faith is nerfed because it seems there is decent consensus that it's too strong currently.
For science:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/4)
Classical 3/6 (was 2/6)
Medieval 4/10 (was 4/10)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 6/14)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 10/20)
Slightly buffed early game, overall lower yields than culture/faith because of those free military units.
For gold:
Ancient 2/4 (was 1/3)
Classical 3/6 (was 1/4)
Medieval 4/10 (was 2/6)
Renaissance 6/14 (was 3/8)
Industrial+ 10/20 (was 4/10)
Slightly buffed early game and significantly buffed later game (where it is currently incredibly weak IMO). Overall lower yields than culture/faith because of the free happiness, equal yields to militaristic CSs. Still might be the weakest CS yield just because gold is usually worth less than science/culture but maybe the happiness makes up for it enough? I guess I could buy that happiness is stronger than free military units.
For food:
WAS:
Ancient/Classical/Medieval 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Renaissance+ 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
NEW:
Ancient/Classical 3/6 (0.5 to secondary cities)
Medieval/Renaissance 4/8 (1.5 to secondary cities)
Industrial+ 5/10 (2.5 to secondary cities)
Slight buff in Medieval, buff in Industrial+.
I wouldn't be opposed to it but others seemed happy with the scaling stopping and letting CS importance be more about votes than yields in late game. In the interest of getting a consensus I figured I'd just leave that part be.
I certainly had Siam in the back of my mind when proposing these changes, as the ancient/classical yields from CSs become glaringly apparent with him. I think the above changes would make his game feel better now that he'd be able to actually use his 75% yield increase on all those yields that used to be just 1 in Ancient. Right now, finding Mercantile, Culture, and Militaristic CSs in Ancient is like "Meh" while finding a Religious CS is totally game warping for him. With these changes I think it would feel a lot more balanced across the board (I might still be sort of "Meh" about finding Mercantile CSs but it's at least a little better).
I think a free 30 faith from finding a religious CS early isn't so terrible. Siam still has to build a shrine to get the rest of the way to a pantheon, and religious CSs tend to be the least common type I think? If you're able to get some barbarian kills or some other means of gaining extra influence (donating a warrior) then more power to you- at least you did something to earn it. You probably had to send your initial warrior and pathfinder over to ensure the kill which means you left your capital open to barbarian attack so it's not without cost or risk.
ElliotS
Warmonger
Honestly after seeing that suggestion I don't know why we wouldn't just make all non-food yields the same as you have for faith/culture. Do you really think 6 gold will make the tiniest difference at all in industrial era?
I highly doubt we'd see any negative balance outcomes, and having all non-food CS follow the same formula would make the mod simpler.
I highly doubt we'd see any negative balance outcomes, and having all non-food CS follow the same formula would make the mod simpler.
InkAxis
King
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2020
- Messages
- 779
This would be good. Especially as it's easy to implement.
As for Siam, I would just make it so that the 75% bonus isn't rounded, that would make it more consistent.
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