Current v1.13 Development Discussion

[strijder20]

Well, I hate to be a spoilsport, but Central Planning can already be the best civic in the game, and it just got a lot better.

 

[Leoreth]

About historical city placement, I suggest that tiles with fully grown towns receive a sign naming them as if they were a city. This way we could cut down on bunching cities closely together while still representing important historical cities.

The geography nut inside me loves this idea a lot.

That would really clutter the map to the point of being annoying.

The new guilds effect is nice, but we still need to buff Mercantalism to keep guilds from being always preferred. Maybe double production speed for Banks & Lighthouses to boost local commerce?

Btw here's an unorthodox idea: Have Mercantilism make trade routes provide food and/or hammers along with commerce. Never again will it be called underpowered, I guarantee it.

Well, maybe not so much. You lose the extra workshop hammer and it's actually high upkeep, not medium. But having double production speed for forge, market, and grocer is a real game changer.

I agree, Markets & Grocers can often be a bit of a sink to build, and a Forge is a pretty critical improvement for any city, so I'd say the Guilds change more than makes up for the losses.
I almost never use Workshops anyway, unless I'm France or Prussia.

Well, I hate to be a spoilsport, but Central Planning can already be the best civic in the game, and it just got a lot better.

[headache intensifies]

Central Planning could lose one commerce on watermills so they're not OP?

The idea behind the new Guilds effect is that it should become useless once your infrastructure is up. I also thought the workshop production is the more valuable of the two previous effects?

What about swapping gold from specialists and +1 commerce from workshops between the civics?

While we're at it, do away with the 'oh, you have an X amount of vassals, now we'll never ever become your vassal' thingy. It annoys me that it is literally impossible to vassalise every civilisation (well, unless you exterminate most of them... ).

Okay, I understand the frustration with the vassal system. This is definitely worth a larger ticket in my opinion, I'll get to it right after my next planned thing.

On the agenda:
- make the AI more willing to capitulate*
- do something about the arbitrary vassal limit**
- help against collapsing vassals
- release civs with relation bonus

* this has bothered me for a while, because the AI is very irrational here. The problem is that the heuristic does not seem to scale well, but I'm also hesitant to touch it because I don't understand every aspect of it. And I really don't want to tweak it in a way where the AI is willing to capitulate too early in other situations. But I'll see what I can do. Maybe some sort of desperation logic where the AI will surrender to you when it has no military left and you threaten it's cities, provided you did not commit some sort of atrocity against them.

** I don't want to become too liberal here. But I think changing the limit from just X vassals to something like "vassal population or military power may not exceed yours" would already be a huge step forward.

:heavybreathing:

As much needed as that fix was, it still doesn't adress balance in the High Middle Ages.

With this new commit late Medieval improvement yields now look like this:

Farm: 1F1C
Lumbermill: 2H
Workshop: -1F2H
Watermill: 1H

The Lumbermill is twice as good as the Watermill, though I'll let that slide since at least it finally addresses the problem of chopping everything ASAP being the optimal strategy always and everywhere.

Still, getting back to my thought experiment of improving a given pair of tiles while staying food neutral:

Farm + Workshop: 2H1C
2 Watermills: 2H

This problem hasn't been solved. Granted, the difference isn't quite as big as it used to be, but Watermills still give a worse yield while taking longer to build. It was exactly for this reason, the late Medieval improvement balance, that I would have preferred if you had restored the Watermill's second commerce with something like Engineering rather than Electricity again.

One could of course make the point that Agrarianism is supposed to make Farms overpowered, but even without it Watermills would still be slightly worse because of the longer build time, and Watermills were used fairly often in Medieval Europe and I think the game should represent that.

Okay, fair enough, I'll think about it some more. Thanks for reminding me about the construction time in any case.

 

[ezzlar]

What does a Watermill represent in the modern ages?

Edit: What if Watermill only got a boost from an early civic? And then become worthless?

 

[Leoreth]

Hydro plants, industrial infrastructure that relies on river access, for example petrochemical industry ... take your pick.

 

[calad]

One thing I never understood of watermills is why do they remove forest as well? I find it rather unlogical.

 

[youtien]

Make workshop +1H or maybe +1H1C for Merchantalism. Remove +25% gold in capital, revert to +1 free specialist for Merchantalism.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Well, I hate to be a spoilsport, but Central Planning can already be the best civic in the game, and it just got a lot better.

Why does Central Planning give extra food anyway? Maybe we could instead move the +1 Food for Watermills and Workshops to a tech instead, like Ecology or Robotics?

That would really clutter the map to the point of being annoying.

You can just remove them manually if they annoy you, or maybe make this feature optional

[headache intensifies]

You know, whenever I see you quoting a bunch of posts at once like this I always think your answer to all of them is gonna be something like "Shut up you idiots, all of those ideas are stupid and you should feel stupid for wasting my time with them!"

Central Planning could lose one commerce on watermills so they're not OP?

Pft, as if Watermills could ever be OP.

The idea behind the new Guilds effect is that it should become useless once your infrastructure is up. I also thought the workshop production is the more valuable of the two previous effects?

I really like this idea, but no idea how it's gonna work out in practice.

What about swapping gold from specialists and +1 commerce from workshops between the civics?

(Assuming Western European civs because we are naturally the center of the world, the galaxy and the universe)
Don't later cities start with those buildings for free after Astronomy anyway?

Okay, fair enough, I'll think about it some more. Thanks for reminding me about the construction time in any case.

Always a pleasure to fight the good fight for the glorious Watermill.

Yeah, of course an alternative solution would be to cut down on the construction time, but personally I'd really prefer if there were some improvements that take quite a bit longer to build but are stronger to make up for it, 'caus meaningful decisions and stuff.

Btw have you thought about my suggestion of making cottages consume workers upon completion?

 

[need my speed]

You can just remove them manually if they annoy you, or maybe make this feature optional

That's still a lot of work for Leoreth though. A modmod(mod, I suppose) would be useful for this.

Also, looking at our world, shouldn't Towns clearly be, by far, the best improvement in the late game, up to the point that it gives better yields than any other possible combination of improvement, technology, and civic?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Also, looking at our world, shouldn't Towns clearly be, by far, the best improvement in the late game, up to the point that it gives better yields than any other possible combination of improvement, technology, and civic?

Agreed, and to make up for it they should consume workers upon completion. I have been suggesting this already, as well as giving them +1 Hammer with some late game tech, but Leoreth countered that this would exacerbate the lategame overproduction problem.

 

[Leoreth]

You know, whenever I see you quoting a bunch of posts at once like this I always think your answer to all of them is gonna be something like "Shut up you idiots, all of those ideas are stupid and you should feel stupid for wasting my time with them!"

Haha.

Don't later cities start with those buildings for free after Astronomy anyway?

I don't think any of those buildings are included in that.

Yeah, of course an alternative solution would be to cut down on the construction time, but personally I'd really prefer if there were some improvements that take quite a bit longer to build but are stronger to make up for it, 'caus meaningful decisions and stuff.

But that would more likely reduce meaningful decisions in the long term. Once your tiles are improved, there is little to do but to build the most expensive improvements.

Btw have you thought about my suggestion of making cottages consume workers upon completion?

Must have missed it, but that seems really harsh.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

But that would more likely reduce meaningful decisions in the long term. Once your tiles are improved, there is little to do but to build the most expensive improvements.

Must have missed it, but that seems really harsh.

And what if you have a choice about whether to build a cottage, consuming your worker for good, and building a watermill? We could combine this with a buff to towns, like +1 Hammer from Computers or something like that.

 

[ales_]

- AI will ignore the value of wonders in techs if they cannot be built

By whom?

 

[Leoreth]

I purposely kept the statement ambiguous so I did not have to repeat myself.

When selecting a tech to research, the AI will ignore wonders it will not be able to build itself. When considering tech trades, it will disregard the value of wonders that the recipient is unable to build.

 

[LacsiraxAriscal]

What about swapping gold from specialists and +1 commerce from workshops between the civics?

But...... surely having gold from specialists is kind of, literally, what guilds are all about?

 

[LacsiraxAriscal]

Sorry for the double post.

Just opened up a marathon Viking game from 3000BC, with intent to look at indies and how they were defended with the recent SVN in mind. Thankfully Rome had just collapsed. Every independent city that had formerly been theirs... was defended with a single archer. Not a legion in sight. Highly doubt that's how they left it - something still not quite right there.

 

[Fresol]

That maybe because the Independents hadn't acquired Feudalism yet, thus the Archers. On collapse, the city is traded to Indie/Barbs and a few defenders are generated, and the unit type depends on the corresponding technology those civs have.

 

[calad]

That maybe because the Independents hadn't acquired Feudalism yet, thus the Archers. On collapse, the city is traded to Indie/Barbs and a few defenders are generated, and the unit type depends on the corresponding technology those civs have.

AI also had a bad feature that it will delete units. Thats why indie cities were very poorly guarded.

 

[Fresol]

That feature has been supposed removed recently. The indies are not that bad at producing units themselves.

 

[Leoreth]

I look forward to the day where civ slots won't be an issue anymore so I can do more things to better represent independents.

 

[ezzlar]

Can independents have the Japanese UP or something similiar to make them on pair with other civs tech level?

Should AI treat all wonder values as zero that they cant build? Is it possible to just lower the value it attaches to it? Like only 25% of earlier? It will give other civs a boost when they get the wonder and the Ai original owner might be able to build it later.