First of all, thanks for putting all the effort into both playing the mod to this extent and also writing down all your observations and suggestions. I know that writing these posts takes a lot of time and I appreciate that you did it. I won't be able to reply to every individual point, but know that I am making note of this post in particular and will return to it at some point. If there is no specific response it either means I am taking in the observation without knowing a good way to address it yet, I fully agree with the proposal, or I fully disagree with the proposal
There was no expectation from me for a reply for everything! It's insane to say it out loud but I've been playing this mod for nearly half my life (yikes!), and it has always been a comfort, and this update came at the perfect time to provide a distraction from the trials and tribulations of grad school and life in general in 2024. You have put in so much vocational, voluntary work building this fantastic project for what I have to imagine is a rather small community; I think as part of that community it's our responsibility to do all we can to help aid and encourage you. I wanted to share as much as I could remember, even if frivolous or something I know only I would be behind, just in case it would be of use! Literally all of these suggestions are always meant to be taken with a grain of salt considering the very nature of this project's development.
I also appreciate you taking the time to sift through my somewhat idiosyncratic and rambling style!
I'm not sure if that would be the right solution. It seems more like there is something off with city conquest gold not scaling properly with game speed. That does not make sense to me because on slower speeds, there will still be the same number of cities with the same size. My guess would be that there is a random element to the gold looted that does not scale. So I would rather fix that than adjusting the requirement.
Fair enough, that sounds reasonable to me!
I hope that addressing the tech snowball also addresses the wonder snowball. Do you know if these civs had anything else to build in their cities? I am trying to figure out if the production is unbalanced as well. Sometimes the AI jumps on wonders because it has already built all the available buildings. I also would like to check in about game speed again. Is this a Marathon observation or does it occur on Normal as well?
To clarify,
virtually all my observations around research and wonder balance was on Epic speed. Though I can't quite bring myself to play normal as my default anymore, I have mixed in a few games as test cases. The switch to Epic was conscious also to be
closer to normal balance. I've seen it in my normal games as well; and generally yes, they tend to have some other production options available, and heavily prioritize wonders. I wish I had more saves, a lot of the best ones are a few versions old now, and the most recent ones I know have my own WB tweaks. I'll try to collect saves more diligently as I enter my more typical "casual play" mode now that I've messed around with every UHV.
Perhaps this would be a good thread as well? Just a place for people to post late-game saves when they notice snowballing, regardless of game speed.
I think the focus on tech trades is correct here. At least part of the reason that 1.18 is seeing faster tech speed is that there is more opportunity to tech trade. Trading is also a factor in snowballing, because being ahead in tech allows trading new techs to backfill. So I don't think the AI is acting incorrectly here, but rather that the mechanic is too powerful.
I would try adjusting the value the AI assigns to new techs first. It should expect more than its sale value for "ahead of time" techs - currently the AI only respects that aspect in its binary willingness to trade at all. I think making the AI even less willing to trade would make for a less dynamic game but adjusting the cost instead could help balance it. If it is made cheaper on the other end it might also help civs that are behind catch up, but I will keep an eye on this regardless.
That is a fair point, I haven't looked at these areas from that perspective much.
I'm not as confident about it in the US context but it's definitely the case for Russia. You literally cannot get to Yakutsk, Magadan, and several other sites needed to "complete" Siberian settlement without having used cultural borders to allow access, which is not something the AI really knows how to do from what I can tell.
Feel free to already start a discussion on this. There is not much intentionality in these except the fact that I skipped creating specific flip zones that differ from their core for many civs except where it was immediately obviously necessary.
Will do soon!
I find videos hard to consume while I am taking in or working on the ideas and suggestions, so if you don't mind I would prefer a post with screenshots.
Understandable! It might take me a longer to put together as I am (as is probably evident) more of a messy brain than a tidy organized one, hence my desire to babble. But it's definitely my priority in terms of feedback that I think I am uniquely suited to provide for the region, not just as a resident but a specialist on the area and the role geography has played in its history.
Open to changing it and open to a worker UU as well. But I do need a name and at least some connection to a real historical concept.
My first instinct is something along the lines of the
courier du bois (literally runners of the woods), the Francophone frontiersmen that were noted independent leaders of the fur trade before the Hudson's Bay monopoly. They're an enduring image of Canadiana, but there's a snag; they're basically not a thing by the mid-19th century, before Canada even achieves confederation. As an alternative I think the best idea for a UU would be a
voyageur - the language refers to the same lineage of francophone merchants of the NWT wilderness, but also alludes to the larger trend and culture of itinerant and mobile labour working as the backbone of Canadian society. Scholars like Harold Innis, Mel Watkins, and more have extensively discussed the importance of export infrastructure and primary resource extraction in the Canadian economy; alternately, scholars like Tyler Shipley or Dene philosopher Glen-Sean Coulthard have talked about the major impact of "man camps," places where itinerant labourers gather temporarily to participate in construction or extraction, in shaping the socio-economic reality of Canada (mostly in harmful ways but yknow). I think a
Voyageur UU would recognize this baseline characteristic of the Canadian state, and also gives some more Francophone recognition (the RCMP is decidedly a much more Anglo institution). In terms of what the
Voyageur does, I think it could be a replacement for the Labourer available at an earlier/different tech (maybe railroad?), that has an increased efficiency in producing improvements on resources and maybe even generates some extra gold and.... oh shoot that's the USA UP. But I do really think this is the right avenue and would suit Canada better. I am all behind the
Voyageur as representing mobile, itinerant frontier labour as a cornerstone of the Canadian socio-economic order.
I will look into it. The main reason for this change is that they were always preferable to mines if you don't care about the one time chop bonus, because it would be the same production with the additional potential of +1 commerce from rivers. I could not distinguish them in a good way and prefer all mines on hills to all lumbermills on hills.
That said, maybe it is fine to give them -1 production on hills so at the base level, they don't have any effect on hills (except that +1 commerce on rivers) so that they can get benefits from tech in the late game. I don't know if that makes them viable but at least there would be an option to build them as a late game civ like Canada.
I think what you've suggested is the best solution and actually reflects the reality of lumber industry in remote places like the Canadian rockies; it was unprofitable until the 20th century, because it was a pain to go there. And even if it's practically without use, I know my brain and will build them for the historicity alone (as I'm sure some others will as well).
While I'm at it (this was something I was gonna save for my Western/Northern NA notes) there should really be a coal resource on northern Vancouver Island. Robert Dunsmuir's collieries there provided 50% of California's coal in the late 19th century, it was what helped spur industrial development both on the Island and in Vancouver, and it made some old white dudes a bazillion gazillion dollars. It would also allow Canada's third largest city IRL to keep up a bit better with Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and the Albertan cities.
Maybe obsoleting a building should also obsolete the requirement to have it? That should be relatively simple to implement.
Also another perfect solution to me!
It makes some amount of thematic sense for Missionaries to fade away as the church and the state grow increasingly distant. However religion should still be present in general, so perhaps religious spread (especially according to their zoning) should get a bump in the modern era, or have a chance of auto-spreading on city founding.
But maybe Missionaries are still a necessary tool - and after all, lots of things in Civ are under the direct control of the player even if they may not be so for a real life government.
On another note - while tech fixing might be sufficient to solve the problem, perhaps a way of mitigating wonder spam from tech leaders could be to impose an increasing
penalty for every additional wonder you build.
It does make some sense, but I also think it neglects the importance of proselytization in things like the British Empire well into the twentieth century, and some could argue its importance in certain aspects of American politics/culture today. I unfortunately keep ringing the Canada bell, but it's the country I know best, and seeing as the country was operating church-run residential schools until 1996, I think it's safe to say missionary ideals played an important role in Canadian society up to the near present (at least).
). However I'm not sure what you mean by this? UHVs shouldn't scale?
