[NFP] Cultural Victory by Monopoly: Modify or Nerf? (poll & discussion)

[GinandTonic]

The problem is ATM the game is over either before or within a couple of turns of corps, without significant effort. All those GM saved to make corps were wasted. You may get to build a National Park, but it is irrelevant. Rock bands and resorts are history. Flight and Economics are the end of the tech tree.

This is exacerbated by Monopolies breaking the AI, and even more so with SS and Heroes on at the same time. Accidental T140 religion?

 

[CromulentRomulan]

1) Firaxis makes new entertainingly OP feature
2) Many people enjoy it
3) The peanut gallery howls for the nerf bat
4) Some folks make it part of their regular game, others don't, but everyone moves on with their lives one way or another.
5) Repeat

This feels like a low quality contribution. Heroes and Secret Societies are entertainingly OP, the main issue with this mode is that its current implementation is so OP that it subtracts entertainment from the game. Also its a game mode that has elicited a lot of complaint so I don't think you're being honest in stating that many people enjoy it.

The issue is mainly that the formula for the bonus ("5% times the number of improved nodes times the number of civilizations who do not control an instance of that resource") is then applied individually to the tourism to each other civ you've met, which increases its effect by a factor of how many other civs there are in the game. It seems like the intended implementation is for the multiplier to be the first part only (""5% times the number of improved nodes"), and have the second part identify the civs it applies to, just like how the other existing tourism modifiers work (shared governments, open borders, active trade route, etc.) That just seems like a bug to fix, not a design nerf.

Thanks for this clarification. OK so if this is the bug then the fix for it would result in an exclusive monopoly granting somewhere in the region of 15 - 60% against other Civs. That would definitely nerf it back down to an additional supplement to a tourism victory rather than its own form of economic victory.

If that is indeed the route they elect to take I hope they will consider changing the products city project such that products can generate more tourism than they currently do. It would be stepping on the toes of Catherine's Magnificences a little bit. Maybe its something that is better reserved for a mod...

 

[Melkus]

It seems like the intended implementation is for the multiplier to be the first part only (""5% times the number of improved nodes"), and have the second part identify the civs it applies to

This has won the thread and is the reasonable solution IMO. You have a monopoly of 7 amber, you get 35% bonus against everyone without amber. It gives interesting strategic options (eg. lets you steal your enemies' amber to get the bonus, makes city states with luxes important), it's not (well, not very) overpowered, it gives the AI a reasonable shot to win a culture victory.
When Firaxis does this and makes the AI improve luxuries (again), this is the best mode so far.

 

[Aurelesk]

From a gamedesign point of view, excluding the numbers, the formula seems to have some problems:

1. The modifier is getting stronger when the number of enemy civilizations in the game is high. Bigger the map, easier the Culture Victory is getting. From Duel to Huge, you go from +5% to +55% per monopolies. Imagine if Open Borders worked the same way: it would make no sense to have +25% in duel map but up to +275% in Huge map.
2. All monopolies yield the same thing, while not all of them are as difficult to get. Getting a monopoly on Sea Luxury Ressources is a challenge. Sadly, it is far more easier to "just" conqueer a small continent and get 4 monopolies instead, so 4 times more Gold. If you are unable to get a Monopoly, there is no point of improving more that 3 luxuries ressources, except be harrased by the AI to sell them the duplicate.

Sure: 1. and 2. make sense in a supply/demand point of view. But from gamedesign perspective, it is not. I would like to:

1. Instead of a "5% × [Number of enemy Civilization not exploiting the luxury ressource]", I would like a flat Tourism boost that scale down by the percentage of civilization not exploiting the ressource, like "25% × [Percentage of enemy Civilization not exploiting the luxury ressource"]. You could still achieve a +100% Tourism by having a monopole on a continent, and get bigger Tourism on bigger map since there is more continent, but at least the increased in Tourism is capped more effectively. Ideally: apply the +25% only if the civilization has not the ressource.
2. The Gold should scale with the number of Luxury ressource. Instead of a +5/+10/+25 Gold per turn at 60%/75%/100%, I would instead like to see: +2 Gold for each number of duplicate, +25%/+50%/+100% Gold once at 60%/75%/100%. For example: there is 4 Marbles and 11 Pearls. You will have 0-2-6-12 Gold per turn at 1-2-3-4 luxuries instead of 0-0-10-25 Gold per turn. For Pearls, it will be 0-2-4-6-8-10-15-17-24-27-40 Gold per turn instead of 0-0-0-0-0-0-5-5-10-10-25 Gold per turn.

In short:

• Cap the Tourism formula. For example: 25% Tourism per Monopoly, applied only to civilization without the ressource. If not doable for some reason, 25% scaled down by the percentage of civilization without the ressource. Goal: make the Tourism be less dependant from map size.
• Scale the Gold per turn from Monopolies by the number of duplicates. For example: +2 Gold per turn for each duplicate, increased by +25%, +50% and +100% once you get a monopoly of 60%, 75% and 100%. Goal: reward the player when achieving a Monopoly on an abundant luxury, as well not rewarding too much the player when getting a Monopoly on a luxury with few duplicates.

Edit: Now that I think about, I am not that sure for the Gold scaling. Having a monopole on a ressource with few duplicates also means it is easier to steal, therefore more susceptible for a war to happen for that ressource.

 

[InsidiousMage]

The issue is mainly that the formula for the bonus ("5% times the number of improved nodes times the number of civilizations who do not control an instance of that resource") is then applied individually to the tourism to each other civ you've met, which increases its effect by a factor of how many other civs there are in the game. It seems like the intended implementation is for the multiplier to be the first part only (""5% times the number of improved nodes"), and have the second part identify the civs it applies to, just like how the other existing tourism modifiers work (shared governments, open borders, active trade route, etc.) That just seems like a bug to fix, not a design nerf.

If this is true then yeah, it's a bug and needs to be fixed, but Firaxis never gives enough details about how things like this are supposed to work, not even in the patch notes. Sure, people would still complain about the bug but people would also understand how the game mode is supposed to work. Instead we are debating if the game mode is overpowered or not and whether that should be fixed or nerfed or something else.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I can see why they gave monopolies a tourism boost because mostly in order to have 100% control of a luxury may well require eliminating a civ or two. That makes the culture victory harder.

In practice though, depending on the map (e.g: TSL maps) it maybe possible to control all copies of luxuries while either not fully eliminating a civ or by liberating one. Say if you liberate a civ/city from a resource-poor location.

So some rebalance is most definitely necessary.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

This has won the thread and is the reasonable solution IMO. You have a monopoly of 7 amber, you get 35% bonus against everyone without amber. It gives interesting strategic options (eg. lets you steal your enemies' amber to get the bonus, makes city states with luxes important), it's not (well, not very) overpowered, it gives the AI a reasonable shot to win a culture victory.
When Firaxis does this and makes the AI improve luxuries (again), this is the best mode so far.

Yeah as someone who plays with maxed out city states I really appreciate the boost that this game mode gives to being Suzerain. They definitely need to work out how to ensure that the AI creates corporations (the other thread on this game mode has deduced that these aren't being created because Great Merchants do not highlight industries when selected). Corporations on, and products produced from, the +20% culture luxuries are the only counterplay offered to offensive tourism by this game mode. Also want to echo the sentiment that I think this game mode has the potential to be the best out of the NFP

 

[Stringer1313]

I did not vote in favor of modifying/redistributing, but I do favor increasing the tourism output slightly for when you make a product. Right now it produces 1 tourism. I think it should be 2. Nothing earth shattering.

 

[DBPirate]

Ideally, the monopolies would have been tied to an economic victory, rather than a cultural one anyway. Oh, well, maybe in Civ VII. I agree they need to be nerfed as they are now.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

1) Firaxis makes new entertainingly OP feature
2) Many people enjoy it
3) The peanut gallery howls for the nerf bat
4) Some folks make it part of their regular game, others don't, but everyone moves on with their lives one way or another.
5) Devs never fix the major issues of the game as they only enjoy adding OP Features.
6) Repeat

Fixed your post for you.

 

[iammaxhailme]

As it is, I vote nerf. I'd understand monopolies being very powerful, as they were in real life, but it's just beyond the pale at the moment.

 

[sonicmyst]

It needs a nerf because it is easier to build corporations than theme great works, manage trade routes, do open borders, and even do a rock band concert.

Possible solutions should be: change the way resources spawn in the map such that they are not clumped together in the same area; reduce the tourism multiplier; or make the tourism effect of monopoly take effect only when Globalization civic is researched.

 

[Basajaun]

Hard nerf in my opinion. Even though its much more difficult to get a monopoly on bigger maps, if you got just one its a big enough modifier that if you are careful to keep open borders and trade routes to other ais, you get to CV without really trying. Its a nice game mechanichs change, but I think they overdid it. Even gunning for SV, with no theatre squares, just monuments, some walls and the odd CS or Civ unique improvement, last 5 games I got a CV about 15-50turn before I would have won SV (faster on smaller maps or with bigger size conquered empires). Tuning it down or changing how the modifiers work together so you cant stack hundreds and even a thousand percent modifier to something more reasonable would be enough I think.

 

[Thebard78]

The easy solution would be to just have the tourism multiplier equal the percentage of the monopoly you control (and only vs civs that don't have that resource). This makes far more real world sense, as it would be much better to control 100% of something rare than 65% of something that is relatively common (and make monopolies a 2 resource minimum to reduce Maui exploits).

 

[Abaxial]

There is aomething slightly weird about complaining that "I wanted to win one way and I won a different way instead". The important thing is that you did win - which is the point of playing in the first place. Also, winning more quickly means you can avoid the tedious endgame drag, where it is obvious that no-one can stop you winning, but nevertheless you hasve to keep on managing all your cities turn after turn until you finally hit the winning line. I don't think it is a bug, it's a design decision - the problem is more that there is no level playing field, because the AI doesn't know how to use it to their advantage. That said, the last game I played, Rome was making a fair go at it.

 

[leandrombraz]

It’s not an accidental win if you’re actively settling and improving large numbers of resources, which is what’s required to obtain the large tourism multipliers.

I got 1200% without trying, without putting much thought into it. You can see all over social medias people winning by accident, from "pro" players that optimize their play, to casuals that barely understand the game mechanics. It doesn't require any kind of effort, it just happens and it's annoying.

In my experience CV wins typically take 200-400 turns, and I haven’t heard much about people winning far outside those bounds. If you’re lucky enough to be in a game absent serious competitors and you’re in a well suited civ, you can clear it around industrial even pre-corporations. In other games, it turns into a slog if you’re unwilling to “diminish the competition”.

I won around turn 190 while actively trying to stop my cultural victory. I would have won a lot earlier than that if I just moved a couple of relics to a city with reliquaries.

The formula also seems fine. The bonus being proportional to copies you have ensures more difficult monopolies are more valuable and being proportional to number of civs in the game makes sense for similar reasons. The “5” base also seems fine, since multipliers of ~100%-200% are pretty typical, so usual monopoles aren’t THAT far outside of bounds. The x1400% seems to be more edge case than anything, but even so, there’s other things in the game that can reach that level of absurdity. I’ve been able to game the system to get 14x as many GPPs as other civs, if that’s my goal, just as an example.

You can get a 125% modifier to Civs that you have an active trade route with them. That requires you to reach that Civ with a trade route, which takes a lot of planning ahead, at least to reach far away Civs in larger maps, and usually it isn't possible to reach every Civ (depends on the map). You also need to keep the peace, so you can trade with everyone (same for the 25% from open borders). For most of the duration of a match, it's a 25% bonus. To get the full bonus you need to recruit 2 Great Merchants, one from the modern era and one from the atomic era, and you need to slot an Information era policy. It takes planning, it has a cost, it only comes at full effect in really late game, and it usually won't apply to every Civ. You can get considerably higher modifiers from a monopoly without even knowing monopolies are a thing, way earlier than you'll get this 125% from trade routes. Any other modifiers that are that high apply only to tourism from specific sources, which limits their effect considerably.

The tourism we get without this game mode is already high, mainly considering that the AI can't keep up with their culture. Adding another modifier to the game without reducing the others is, on itself, a bad idea, which makes an easy victory easier. A 25%-50% potential modifier that applies only to Civs who do not control an instance of a resource would be aligned with the expected OPness from the New Frontier Pass, turning it into another unhealthy, but acceptable feature. Anything above that is too much. And no, getting ridiculously high modifiers isn't an edge case. People posting screenshots of these ridiculously high modifiers or complaining that they won a culture victory by accident is top 3 most posted thread on Reddit, right there with "Kublai Khan breaks policies" and "Look at this preserve yields!".

While they nerf it, they could also buff the gold you get from monopolies, which is underwhelming.

 

[leandrombraz]

Playing with monopolies is bad enough.
Don't gripe about fast wins if you are combining game modes with Heroes, SS and Monopoly.
lol

You don't need to combine modes to win by accident with this modifier, though the relics from heroes can add insult to injury, if you combine it with reliquaries.

 

[kryat]

I got 1200% without trying, without putting much thought into it. You can see all over social medias people winning by accident, from "pro" players that optimize their play, to casuals that barely understand the game mechanics. It doesn't require any kind of effort, it just happens and it's annoying.



I won around turn 190 while actively trying to stop my cultural victory. I would have won a lot earlier than that if I just moved a couple of relics to a city with reliquaries.



You can get a 125% modifier to Civs that you have an active trade route with them. That requires you to reach that Civ with a trade route, which takes a lot of planning ahead, at least to reach far away Civs in larger maps, and usually it isn't possible to reach every Civ (depends on the map). You also need to keep the peace, so you can trade with everyone (same for the 25% from open borders). For most of the duration of a match, it's a 25% bonus. To get the full bonus you need to recruit 2 Great Merchants, one from the modern era and one from the atomic era, and you need to slot an Information era policy. It takes planning, it has a cost, it only comes at full effect in really late game, and it usually won't apply to every Civ. You can get considerably higher modifiers from a monopoly without even knowing monopolies are a thing, way earlier than you'll get this 125% from trade routes. Any other modifiers that are that high apply only to tourism from specific sources, which limits their effect considerably.

The tourism we get without this game mode is already high, mainly considering that the AI can't keep up with their culture. Adding another modifier to the game without reducing the others is, on itself, a bad idea, which makes an easy victory easier. A 25%-50% potential modifier that applies only to Civs who do not control an instance of a resource would be aligned with the expected OPness from the New Frontier Pass, turning it into another unhealthy, but acceptable feature. Anything above that is too much. And no, getting ridiculously high modifiers isn't an edge case. People posting screenshots of these ridiculously high modifiers or complaining that they won a culture victory by accident is top 3 most posted thread on Reddit, right there with "Kublai Khan breaks policies" and "Look at this preserve yields!".

While they nerf it, they could also buff the gold you get from monopolies, which is underwhelming.

I want to thank you for a thoughtful and detailed reply. I will admit that I underestimate its impact on some other players. The experiences you’ve seen and had have not been the experiences I have seen and had. A few caveats: my experiences have been from ~4 games of my own since the update and around the same number played by my SO. Only one of these have been finished, but about half of them got to the industrial era. I’ve just been too busy or bored with a game to finish. I play on Immortal, with dramatic ages, and M&C, while my SO plays at Emperor with all but dramatic ages and apocalypse.

In each of my games, I have gotten ~3 monopolies that I had to stretch a bit to get. It took effort to hunt down the copies that pushed me over the threshold and settling in places I wouldn’t normally settle. In one case, this was not true, but I’ll call it a fluke. In a TSL Europe map, I was Netherlands, and within the first 50 turns, I had loyalty flipped Gaul and England completely, giving me a fast monopoly on dyes.

In no game did I build more than a very small handful of theater districts where there was both a wonder and an entertainment complex. I got a lucky relic from a goody hut, but most of my culture was from monuments and Pingala, and I stayed near the middle of the pack on culture, since I was going for a vague SV (really more of a builder play maxing money). I did lead on tourism victory thanks to the multiplier, but I was only a slight margin past culture heavyweights like Ethiopia and Pericles. I strongly suspect that if the AI were improving more of their resources, they would have been passing me in tourism from their own monopolies. I was well past turn 200 in two of these games.

In my SO’s most substantial game, they played as Dido and won around turn 350 with a diplomatic victory after giving up on a culture victory. The unsuccessful culture victory was fought in the Information Era with rock bands against Peter. This is despite having Heroes and SS on (picked Owls).

I suspect that the incidental CVs are more edge cases than it may appear due to a strong demonstration of selection bias. The ones who experience incidental victories to social media and forums, but they aren’t a true random sample. Even the poll here is biased toward elite players.

Ultimately though, even though I don’t think it needs a nerf, I wouldn’t care if it receives one.

 

[walkerjks]

Rock bands and resorts are history. Flight and Economics are the end of the tech tree.

Not sure flight is really needed or wanted. You need currency (though, really, I'm not sure if monopoly modifiers work without currency and an industry??? You may not need any specific tech for this to work) and whatever tech is needed to find the other AIs. So maybe cartography. Maybe only shipbuilding. Maybe none of that on most pangaea and all highlands and inland sea maps. So end of the tech tree might be currency. Flight is good in longer games. Printing press is good if you are using books for tourism. Otherwise... hmmm. I got a turn 140-ish deity win as culturally vanilla Amanitore and as I learn more about how fast monopolies make these wins happen, I can strip out stuff to make it even faster. Get some base tourism (whether through books or wonders or relics or...), gain monopolies, and win fast. That's it. Nothing else is needed.

 

[InsidiousMage]

There is aomething slightly weird about complaining that "I wanted to win one way and I won a different way instead". The important thing is that you did win - which is the point of playing in the first place.

Civ is a game where you basically min/max towards a specific victory condition. If I am maxing towards a science victory and mining towards culture victory but win the culture victory because of the monopolies then that's bad game design. Getting a victory you where making no effort to get is, again, bad game design. When I played as Vietnam and got a fast culture victory it wasn't a problem because that's what I wanted. Also, some people like playing with as many the game mechanics as possible and ending the game too early prevents that.

I don't think it is a bug, it's a design decision

Well, it would have been nice for the devs to lets know that if the case but either way, if the monopolies mode basically intended to supercharge a culture then if you are not going for a culture victory some people are not going to want to use it. I imagine when Civ players think of "Monopolies and Corporations" they are not thinking about a fast culture win and if the devs aren't communicating well enough with the player base people are ultimately going to be very frustrated and at some point the players' upset starts becoming the fault of Firaxis for not properly explaining what they intend for the game to be.