Jabarto
Emperor
Thank you, but I just noticed that you not only explained this once before, but even uploaded a mod with some of those changes already. My profuse apologies for being impatient.
Culture Calibration Mod
- Thread starter Thalassicus
- Start date
Thank you, but I just noticed that you not only explained this once before, but even uploaded a mod with some of those changes already. My profuse apologies for being impatient.
jwallstone
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2010
- Messages
- 59
Yeah, I completely agree with QES. There absolutely should be a penalty for expansion. Culture shouldn't become just one more thing that large empires do better than small ones. An otherwise strategic and interesting dynamic becomes just another obvious bias toward larger civs.
An argument could be made that the 30% penalty is a little bit too large, and I would agree, but it should absolutely be there. The addition of free policies with certain techs is a great mechanic that overcomes this and allows large civs to get some policies anyway, but still allows focused small culture civs to get way ahead. I think it's a great approach, but there absolutely needs to be a penalty for expansion otherwise the strategic choice is lost.
An argument could be made that the 30% penalty is a little bit too large, and I would agree, but it should absolutely be there. The addition of free policies with certain techs is a great mechanic that overcomes this and allows large civs to get some policies anyway, but still allows focused small culture civs to get way ahead. I think it's a great approach, but there absolutely needs to be a penalty for expansion otherwise the strategic choice is lost.
BjoernLars
Warlord
One idea could be that the first 3 policy branches are pretty easy to fill out, no matter the size of your empire, but the last 2 (or 3) exponentially increase for larger empires to make a culture win pretty darn tootin' hard.
Feyd Rautha
King
I like this idea. Is it possible to make an exponential rise in policy cost? Basically you can get enough policies for three branches (18 policies) rather easily, but then costs skyrocket.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
I agree that culture vivtory should be possible with a large empire, too. But ideally, all victory types (except conquest of course) should be viable for rather small empires.
Why?
First, I don't want to be forced to attack. Civ is one of the few games where peaceful play is possible by design.
Second, small empires should stay competitive and technologically up-to-date. I don't want them to be pushovers. I especially don't want a situation where an empire with 2 more cities in the early game always wins!
In several BtS games, I had rather small AI civs leading in tech, which was great.
MasterDinadan
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2008
- Messages
- 235
@Tomice
Taking your your neighbors cities comes at a cost (you have to build a larger army to attack than you need to defend, and the city you end up with is either a puppet or annex).
And getting more cities is not necessarily always better.
The pros and cons with expanding for science for instance. Expanding causes your population to grow faster, which will increase your base science, up until you reach the happiness cap.
Staying small causes your population to grow more slowly, but it will keep growing in cities that are already developed with libraries and universities, and you will be getting more use out of National College.
Happiness is really a great mechanic, as expanding to quickly grow your population comes at a cost (less total population in the long run, and less efficient use of that population).
Anyway, you said that you would like all victory types to be possible with empires large and small. Since that's exactly what I'm trying to do with culture, my mod is apparently fulfilling the purpose you are describing. This mod is not intended to modify science and diplo victories, so I don't really need feedback on those just yet.
@BjoernLars
The current rate is pretty similar to what you describe, but I don't really want the increase in cost to become so dramatic beyond a certain point (or typical civs will just plan ahead for exactly 18 policies and work to get those). The rate increase more gradually than an exponential, but it starts out slower and ends up faster, as I mentioned.
@QES, jwallstone
I've been saying from the beginning that large empires will not be better at a culture victory than small ones. They will be about equal. Combined with the fact that small empires actually can do fine in science and diplo (seriously, I've won many games on Immortal with 5 or less cities for most of the game), and there's not really a problem.
I just don't like the thought process that leads a player to decide "I want to settle another city but I don't want it to make winning harder, so I'll just stick with these." If a player wants to expand, they should be able to. If they want to stay small, that should be fine too. The current culture system outright discourages expansion. I want it to be somewhat neutral.
Anyway, if you like how the culture costs are calculated now, then you don't really need a mod for it.
Taking your your neighbors cities comes at a cost (you have to build a larger army to attack than you need to defend, and the city you end up with is either a puppet or annex).
And getting more cities is not necessarily always better.
The pros and cons with expanding for science for instance. Expanding causes your population to grow faster, which will increase your base science, up until you reach the happiness cap.
Staying small causes your population to grow more slowly, but it will keep growing in cities that are already developed with libraries and universities, and you will be getting more use out of National College.
Happiness is really a great mechanic, as expanding to quickly grow your population comes at a cost (less total population in the long run, and less efficient use of that population).
Anyway, you said that you would like all victory types to be possible with empires large and small. Since that's exactly what I'm trying to do with culture, my mod is apparently fulfilling the purpose you are describing. This mod is not intended to modify science and diplo victories, so I don't really need feedback on those just yet.
@BjoernLars
The current rate is pretty similar to what you describe, but I don't really want the increase in cost to become so dramatic beyond a certain point (or typical civs will just plan ahead for exactly 18 policies and work to get those). The rate increase more gradually than an exponential, but it starts out slower and ends up faster, as I mentioned.
@QES, jwallstone
I've been saying from the beginning that large empires will not be better at a culture victory than small ones. They will be about equal. Combined with the fact that small empires actually can do fine in science and diplo (seriously, I've won many games on Immortal with 5 or less cities for most of the game), and there's not really a problem.
I just don't like the thought process that leads a player to decide "I want to settle another city but I don't want it to make winning harder, so I'll just stick with these." If a player wants to expand, they should be able to. If they want to stay small, that should be fine too. The current culture system outright discourages expansion. I want it to be somewhat neutral.
Anyway, if you like how the culture costs are calculated now, then you don't really need a mod for it.
QES
Court Jester
Happiness doesnt work.
I love the happiness mechanic. But you presume that it affects the AI - it doesnt. The AI can have the largest empire and also the happiest empire. If being large is not affected by happiness for the AI, then no AI player will play small civs unless forced to diplomatically. The players choices then are artificial in comparison.
You say you dont want players to think "oh but I dont want it to make winning harder". Technically that is every choice in the game. To try and manage an empire to every choice is a value-add to the empire you are running.
I am sorry, but I wholly and completely disagree with your philosophy on this - you are, in essence, requiring people to expand and get bigger, you're not merely making it "neutral." In a choice of lack of pros and cons, a bigger civ has more raw output. Period. This makes them superior in every instance. If bigger civs can win culture as likely as smaller civs, then there is no reason to stay small.
I was thinking that this mod would be about removing the exclusivity of culture victories with small civs by expanding the portfolio of what smaller civs can do.
What I wanted was for bigger civs to get more policy choices, so that the game is more flavorful over all. But then I wanted a bone to be thrown to smaller peaceful nations.
Also, 5 cities is not a small empire. 2-3 cities is a small empire. (for me on standard size/epic progression). 5 Cities to me is a middling empire. Where as the 10+ is the mammoth empires that the AI's like to have and never have happiness issues with.
Good luck with your mod and playing the game you want to play, honestly. But I doubt my input will be of further use here.
Feyd Rautha
King
See you later, Qes. I look forward to your culture mod since you definitely have specific ideas. We can come there and beg and plead for more policy options for large civs.
I'd keep the small empire vs large empire balance to a separate (possibly dependent) mod, honestly.
The best tools available to promote small empire viability are the national wonders - if you've built a university in every city, you may build Oxford University and get a free tech, etc.
More of those, gating them on more expensive buildings, etc gives a (potentially, if you wanted to go that direction) huge boost to having your entire empire extremely well-developed, which is mostly going to be small empires.
The best tools available to promote small empire viability are the national wonders - if you've built a university in every city, you may build Oxford University and get a free tech, etc.
More of those, gating them on more expensive buildings, etc gives a (potentially, if you wanted to go that direction) huge boost to having your entire empire extremely well-developed, which is mostly going to be small empires.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Well, a two or even three city empire is very small IMO. Almost too small to specialize cities, too small to have any meaningful army. It makes sense that it is very hard to win as such a small country.
Lets call a 2-3 city empire Denmark, 5 cities Britain and 10 cities Russia.
Denmark had some decades of glory, but honestly, they were never the strongest empire in the world. It would be weird if a country of this size could dominate the world. Same goes for Sweden, the Netherlands or Portugal.
On the other hand, Britain is mid-sized and had a very significant impact on the world. A mid-size empire like Britain should be a viable candidate for victory, without having to conquer France or Spain. Especially the tech level should not be tied to the size.
Hi everyone, thanks MasterDinadan for doing this work, culture and policies in this game are really quite messed up and need some revamping. I've tried to read the whole thread and here are my thoughts on the matter:
1. I really like the idea of giving every policy branch one aggressive policy. I define this as a policy that adversely affects all civs that don't have it. So for Honor it could be -5% combat strength to all civs without the policy; for Patronage it could be -10% influence from gold; etc. This would give some additional benefit to highly cultural civilizations along the way to their cultural victory, which may be necessary balance because you're taking away their monopoly on the policy system.
2. I know you said you wanted to focus on policies, but seriously, the rate of border growth from culture needs to speed up considerably. I'm consistently getting to the modern era with an empire that looks like a spider web, even when building monuments/temples/opera houses in all my expansion cities.
3. I like the idea of free policies with every era, but what I'd rather see is free policy respecs. The current system makes your civilization so static over time. It's like, just because my people needed Honor to defend against barbarian invaders in the year 2000 BC, doesn't mean it's going to be one of the pillars of my post-Renaissance society. Over the course of thousands of years the cultural beliefs of a people don't just steadily evolve, they undergo paradigm shifts that literally change everything. This is why we divide our history into eras like 'the Middle Ages' and the 'Renaissance' to begin with. The current system doesn't allow for historical transformations like the French Revolution - it could only interpret it as 'finishing out the Tradition tree and opening the first policy of Freedom'. Which, in my opinion, makes the policy system feel both historically inaccurate and terribly boring.
Those are my thoughts for now, do with them what you will.
1. I really like the idea of giving every policy branch one aggressive policy. I define this as a policy that adversely affects all civs that don't have it. So for Honor it could be -5% combat strength to all civs without the policy; for Patronage it could be -10% influence from gold; etc. This would give some additional benefit to highly cultural civilizations along the way to their cultural victory, which may be necessary balance because you're taking away their monopoly on the policy system.
2. I know you said you wanted to focus on policies, but seriously, the rate of border growth from culture needs to speed up considerably. I'm consistently getting to the modern era with an empire that looks like a spider web, even when building monuments/temples/opera houses in all my expansion cities.
3. I like the idea of free policies with every era, but what I'd rather see is free policy respecs. The current system makes your civilization so static over time. It's like, just because my people needed Honor to defend against barbarian invaders in the year 2000 BC, doesn't mean it's going to be one of the pillars of my post-Renaissance society. Over the course of thousands of years the cultural beliefs of a people don't just steadily evolve, they undergo paradigm shifts that literally change everything. This is why we divide our history into eras like 'the Middle Ages' and the 'Renaissance' to begin with. The current system doesn't allow for historical transformations like the French Revolution - it could only interpret it as 'finishing out the Tradition tree and opening the first policy of Freedom'. Which, in my opinion, makes the policy system feel both historically inaccurate and terribly boring.
Those are my thoughts for now, do with them what you will.
Feyd Rautha
King
You could add a "Revolution" button which would allow you to respec your policies with a 5 turn period of Anarchy.
MasterDinadan
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2008
- Messages
- 235
@QES
I'm not sure why happiness and AI is even an issue in the discussion. Are you concerned that the changes in this mod will give the AI an unfair advantage against the players? The AI has many unfair advantages against the player already if you play on higher difficulty settings, and I've never actually seen them come close to a culture win, so I don't think making it harder is much of an issue. If it does get harder, you can always change the difficulty level.
My 5 or less figure included puppets that contributed basically nothing, and what I meant is that I never went over 5 cities the whole game. I usually only have 3 cities and then some puppets.
And smaller empires do have many advantages. They have an easier time building national wonders, they can use their population more efficiently, they have less geographic area to defend from enemies, and they have cheaper policies. My mod really only affects the last of these points, and smaller civs still have the advantage here, just not by as much.
You seem really worried about a small change wildly throwing off the balance between large and small. Is this based on you actually playing the mod, or is it speculation? Because if you played the mod and found something a problem, I'd really like to know. But if you are talking about things that might be wrong with the mod and don't reflect reality, you are right. I'm not interested.
@Jazus
There is a limitation to how original we can get with policies with the tools currently available. That being said, I don't intend to change a lot of the policies anyway. I'm kind of adopting a "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." mentality, and fixing things that I think are problematic in the game. I can see the appeal of having an entirely new set of policy branches in the game, but that's not what this mod is about. Nice ideas though!
I've found that culture growth becomes less of a problem simply because I'm inclined to actually build more culture buildings. Since the cost per policy is lower, there's more incentive to get culture buildings (they pay off more than previously). This, in turn, speeds up border growth. It may not be enough to suit your needs, but it's a start.
As for the policy "respec," we've been discussing it. My inclination is for this to happen when a particular World Wonder is completed (Magna Carta?) but I don't know if it can be done with Lua. Thal is looking into that.
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm not sure why happiness and AI is even an issue in the discussion. Are you concerned that the changes in this mod will give the AI an unfair advantage against the players? The AI has many unfair advantages against the player already if you play on higher difficulty settings, and I've never actually seen them come close to a culture win, so I don't think making it harder is much of an issue. If it does get harder, you can always change the difficulty level.
My 5 or less figure included puppets that contributed basically nothing, and what I meant is that I never went over 5 cities the whole game. I usually only have 3 cities and then some puppets.
And smaller empires do have many advantages. They have an easier time building national wonders, they can use their population more efficiently, they have less geographic area to defend from enemies, and they have cheaper policies. My mod really only affects the last of these points, and smaller civs still have the advantage here, just not by as much.
You seem really worried about a small change wildly throwing off the balance between large and small. Is this based on you actually playing the mod, or is it speculation? Because if you played the mod and found something a problem, I'd really like to know. But if you are talking about things that might be wrong with the mod and don't reflect reality, you are right. I'm not interested.
@Jazus
There is a limitation to how original we can get with policies with the tools currently available. That being said, I don't intend to change a lot of the policies anyway. I'm kind of adopting a "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." mentality, and fixing things that I think are problematic in the game. I can see the appeal of having an entirely new set of policy branches in the game, but that's not what this mod is about. Nice ideas though!
I've found that culture growth becomes less of a problem simply because I'm inclined to actually build more culture buildings. Since the cost per policy is lower, there's more incentive to get culture buildings (they pay off more than previously). This, in turn, speeds up border growth. It may not be enough to suit your needs, but it's a start.
As for the policy "respec," we've been discussing it. My inclination is for this to happen when a particular World Wonder is completed (Magna Carta?) but I don't know if it can be done with Lua. Thal is looking into that.
Thanks for the feedback.
Feyd Rautha
King
I was poking around in the mod to better understand the math and I noticed that the policy tracks to unlock Utopia hasn't been changed yet. I would think this is one of the critical aspects of the change (in order to make culture cost the same investment). Is it in there and I'm missing it or is it not a part of the mod yet?
King Lemming
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2005
- Messages
- 4
I gotta admit, I'm a fan of the idea that a cultural victory should be attainable for any Civilization, regardless of size.
Thing is, I can kind of see the point where if it's equally viable, then there's no reason not to expand the empire. I think there are some ways around making that a priority necessarily, but they may fall outside the scope of this particular mod.
While I can't pretend to read the minds of the Civ V devs, I think that the original intent was not simply to limit cultural victories to small civilizations, but rather the increasing policy cost is meant to represent the difficulty involved in pushing out new policies to a large civilization. Compare Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, or Finland to the U.S.A., or China, or India. They are able to perform tremendous societal reforms and have a very cultured/developed society. The larger nations, in comparison, have a damn hard time pushing out major sweeping reforms.
But the big thing there is that the size of the smaller nations makes them very adaptable. If there is any sort of policy respeccing (and I would suggest allowing it more often than just a wonder), I'd say this is where the small nations should have the advantage - perhaps having a *few* more policies (but not like it is now), but being able to shift them around quickly to adapt to the situation at hand. IMO, that would make for a lot more compelling gameplay as a small civilization.
EDIT: Basically if there is any "Anarchy" or what have you with a respec mechanic, and again I think it would be an amazing addition, it should be proportional to the size of the civilization (although perhaps mitigated somewhat with existing policy choices).
Thing is, I can kind of see the point where if it's equally viable, then there's no reason not to expand the empire. I think there are some ways around making that a priority necessarily, but they may fall outside the scope of this particular mod.
While I can't pretend to read the minds of the Civ V devs, I think that the original intent was not simply to limit cultural victories to small civilizations, but rather the increasing policy cost is meant to represent the difficulty involved in pushing out new policies to a large civilization. Compare Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, or Finland to the U.S.A., or China, or India. They are able to perform tremendous societal reforms and have a very cultured/developed society. The larger nations, in comparison, have a damn hard time pushing out major sweeping reforms.
But the big thing there is that the size of the smaller nations makes them very adaptable. If there is any sort of policy respeccing (and I would suggest allowing it more often than just a wonder), I'd say this is where the small nations should have the advantage - perhaps having a *few* more policies (but not like it is now), but being able to shift them around quickly to adapt to the situation at hand. IMO, that would make for a lot more compelling gameplay as a small civilization.
EDIT: Basically if there is any "Anarchy" or what have you with a respec mechanic, and again I think it would be an amazing addition, it should be proportional to the size of the civilization (although perhaps mitigated somewhat with existing policy choices).
MasterDinadan
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2008
- Messages
- 235
It could be made a national wonder that requires some otherwise "useless" building to be built in every city.
Large empires then have to spend a lot of time building the building in every city so that they can build the national wonder to trigger the change, while small empires have an easier time of it.
For example, after building "City Hall" in every city, you can work on a "Legislation" project which refunds your policies.
Another idea is, instead of having policy costs increase significantly, require a portion of the culture cost in gold to be spent when there are extra cities, to represent the costs of campaigning/propaganda. This is probably beyond our capabilities though.
Large empires then have to spend a lot of time building the building in every city so that they can build the national wonder to trigger the change, while small empires have an easier time of it.
For example, after building "City Hall" in every city, you can work on a "Legislation" project which refunds your policies.
Another idea is, instead of having policy costs increase significantly, require a portion of the culture cost in gold to be spent when there are extra cities, to represent the costs of campaigning/propaganda. This is probably beyond our capabilities though.
MasterDinadan
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2008
- Messages
- 235
The overall cost of policies comes out to about the same once you get 27 or so (most culture victories will get at least 3 free policies anyway).
The 6 branches victory figure was designed with the free era policies change in mind. Since the era policies have not been included in the mod yet, the number of branches needed is still only 5. 6 would be too difficult without the extra free policies.
I honestly don't like the idea of respeccing policies (except maybe through a world wonder), though I'll admit that until we get the SDK and can directly fix the policy hoarding issue it might be the best option.
Feyd Rautha
King
Played with the culture mod active last night. Was able to OCC with Ghandi in the mid 1900's. You weren't correct in what you said above, though. The policy costs are not as much with the formula you used unless you build three cities. Compared to the standard formula the cost is still much lower.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Some research I did might help, though unfortunately the exact function name needed for giving a free policy is still unknown:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=390367
Could experiment with this some... it'll be better once we know all the functions that actually can be called.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=390367
Could experiment with this some... it'll be better once we know all the functions that actually can be called.
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