Dawn of Civilization General Discussion

[Dracosolon]

That slave city is really something. They're doing Hellraiser stuff in there.

e: Wouldn't you win a Domination victory first?

 

[banzay13]

Ah... Azteck's Kyoto... I was there..., it was unthinkable city!


Where ancient whips once cracked, now silent glass giants climb, scraping the heavens with their luminous spires. Their peaks, crowned in eternal light, are not the end, but merely the beginning—launching pads for a people who now stretch their dreams towards the stars. A city of chrome and cosmic yearning, its breathtaking skyline stands upon a deep, dark foundation of forgotten sighs. Its beautiful, terrible song is the wind humming through steel canyons built by bound hands, a hymn to the sky it was forced from, and the cosmos it now dares to claim.

(Credit - DeepSeek)

 

[LostPenguin]

Is this a new normal for European civilizations settling multiple cities in America even before 1400AD? In this game I am Poland, and France/Spain have been founding cities in America in the 1300s; it is hard to catch up even through espionage. You can see in my screenshot that France had already settled multiple cities in the Caribbean in 1408 AD. In another game, I was the Aztec, and I was discovered in the mid 1300s, too. The game is Regent/Marathon if related. I would guess that no wars between major European civilizations have helped them develop quickly.

 

[Leoreth]

Yes, the game generally develops faster on slower game speeds.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I thought we established that Marathon should be considered Bizarro Banana World.

 

[Hickman888]

My thoughts on my French playthrough...

I think my most immediate takeaway is that it felt too easy. By circa 1100AD, I felt that I had such a commanding lead over the other European civilizations militarily and economically that I was basically set to dominate Europe and North America, and be first in line for the wonders. With France having a strong core, an early start, and plenty of ground to advance into, some degree of snowballing is going to happen. But my suggestions here are geared towards giving France a bit more of a handicap in the start, so that snowball starts rolling a bit later than it currently does.

• To start, I personally think that the recent starting tech buff to France can be reversed. I played a few opening games as France before the tech patch, and I felt completely capable of quickly catching up, and passing, the other Europeans technologically. And for AI France, I witnessed them in my Byzantium game from a month ago tech firearms in the middle of the 14th century. So I don't think the AI was struggling teching with France either.
• The starting Visigoth invasions, usually I witnessed two stacks, in my playthrough I only had to deal with one. So I think that could be made to be consistently two stacks.
• The Vikings as well are usually pretty passive, unfortunately. I know amphibious invasions are not exactly the AI strongsuit, but maybe they can be given expansion zone on the French coast, to encourage some action on their part. Speaking of the Vikings, at one point I witnessed a Barbarian Longship get taken out by a Viking Longship. So if all these Vikings are fighting each other, they're not fighting France.
• I think the biggest thing to temper the French in the Medieval era would be to give them a smaller core, and then in the Renaissance era it can expand to its current size. In the Medieval era I held onto both Italy and Germany, which definitely helped my lead over the others.
• The Paris iron is part of the Holy Roman flip zone, and I don't think that's intended.

Okay, that's all for the French. Now a few thoughts on the mid-game civics.

• While Bureaucracy felt very competitive with the other Legitimacy civics, I cannot say the same for Regulated Trade. Regulated Trade has some stiff competition with both Merchant Trade and Free Enterprise IMO, and I find it very hard to justify this civic at the moment. I built up to 25 cities as colonialist France, and that's a lot of trade income I would be missing out on, not to mention Low vs High upkeep.
• More than being underpowered, I think Regulated Trade is suffering from a case of lost identity. What I mean by that, is that if you want to make running Regulated Trade worthwhile, than you should also run Individualism... But it suffers a stability penalty with that. Furthermore, Regulated Trade doubles the production speed of the Customs House, to boost foreign trade route yield... But Merchant Trade and Free Enterprise, the two competitor civics of Regulated Trade, are the economy two civics which actually boost your trade routes, so it feels like this building modifier is in the wrong civic.
• Regulated Trade and Colonialism are both introduced at the start of the colonial era, and should both be very attractive options for civilizations looking to establish colonies and/or Mercantilism. But that would mean leaving behind Merchant Trade and Hegemony, which give the player double production speed of Markets and Jails respectively... Two very important buildings you'll want to build in your new overseas colonies. In my opinion, I'm not seeing too much value in Regulated Trade and Colonialism at the moment.
• To be clear, I consider Merchant Trade and Hegemony to more or less be perfectly balanced for the early game (although I think Merchant Trade could stand to lose the extra Merchant ), so that rather than looking to nerf those two civics, I would much rather find ways to buff Regulated Trade and Colonialism. I want to play through all of the other colonial powers before I start making explicit suggestions (although +1 in capital per colony does immediately come to mind ), but I wanted to get these immediate thoughts out there.

And one last thing this game made me think about, that I would like to hear everybody else's opinion as well...

Happiness seems a lot easier to control than I remember it had been in 1.17, at least in the European colonial mid game for the home cities.

I think I could've gotten away with running Elective for my entire game, and deal with minimal problems as a result, especially in my core cities. I definitely want to hear from other people on this, but that was my experience in this last game as France. While Elective does feel a bit overtuned at the moment, I think that's more a result of being barely a concern, once I started getting access to all these luxury resources, and therefore Monarchy losing it's main appeal.

 

[Dracosolon]

My thoughts on my French playthrough...

I think my most immediate takeaway is that it felt too easy. By circa 1100AD, I felt that I had such a commanding lead over the other European civilizations militarily and economically that I was basically set to dominate Europe and North America, and be first in line for the wonders. With France having a strong core, an early start, and plenty of ground to advance into, some degree of snowballing is going to happen. But my suggestions here are geared towards giving France a bit more of a handicap in the start, so that snowball starts rolling a bit later than it currently does.

• To start, I personally think that the recent starting tech buff to France can be reversed. I played a few opening games as France before the tech patch, and I felt completely capable of quickly catching up, and passing, the other Europeans technologically. And for AI France, I witnessed them in my Byzantium game from a month ago tech firearms in the middle of the 14th century. So I don't think the AI was struggling teching with France either.
• The starting Visigoth invasions, usually I witnessed two stacks, in my playthrough I only had to deal with one. So I think that could be made to be consistently two stacks.
• The Vikings as well are usually pretty passive, unfortunately. I know amphibious invasions are not exactly the AI strongsuit, but maybe they can be given expansion zone on the French coast, to encourage some action on their part. Speaking of the Vikings, at one point I witnessed a Barbarian Longship get taken out by a Viking Longship. So if all these Vikings are fighting each other, they're not fighting France.
• I think the biggest thing to temper the French in the Medieval era would be to give them a smaller core, and then in the Renaissance era it can expand to its current size. In the Medieval era I held onto both Italy and Germany, which definitely helped my lead over the others.
• The Paris iron is part of the Holy Roman flip zone, and I don't think that's intended.

- I agree that France is on the easier side. It's a civ with a lot of time to even begin working toward its UHV (outside of getting Notre-Dame), it has excellent modifiers like England but also a much larger territory at start. I agree shrinking its medieval core would be good for both balance and historical reasons, though getting a large medieval empire like you did should also be harder on your maintenance.
- One factor though from your playthrough is that Italy was vulnerable, which allowed you to snowball (especially with Rome having that many Military Instructors!). I think giving 3000 BC post-Roman collapse Italy better defenders, on part with what it gets on the 600 AD scenario, would be a good start (to the chagrin of Charlemagne). Personally I would also revert the new conditional nature of the Italy spawn, but I imagine that was done for a reason.
- Similarly, medieval England could be more of a threat. Currently it's mostly a threat to Ireland, sometimes to an unprepared Brittany, and it's pretty vulnerable to an invasion.
- I'm not sure what you mean about the Paris Iron, I didn't notice a flip in your playthrough? Are you talking about the one near your eastern city of Nancy?
- You didn't need to go to the Maghreb given your conquests in Europe, but that's my own strategy when I'm feeling cheap about getting Marble and Stone. I'd argue Algeria should be settled faster and defended better, probably by the Moors. It's a territory with very high potential so it should not be that easy to get it.
- Maybe it has some relevance to the Mexican UHV, but personally I would remove the French conquest area in Mexico. The Franco-Mexican war was a dismal failure and I don't think France should be encouraged to conquer the Aztecs.

I've also argued before that France should have a more ambitious UHV, for both historical and balance reasons:
1) Ancien Regime: This one is fine, working on an early Legendary city gives the French game its flavor, but I'd argue that deadline should also incorporate the American colonization aspect, for reasons I detailed here.
2) The Napoleonic Empire: This is the real challenge of the UHV and should stay. As a possible, less important flavor aspect, I'd like to have some nod to the political legacy of the Revolution and Empire but that's hard to represent. Something could be done with civics but that's hard to balance, so Statesmen make more sense to me.
3) City of Lights: This one I have a problem with. There is zero challenge in a wonder race this late in the game as a dominant civ - it's possible to complete it around the deadline of the second goal, like you did. My suggestion is to have something to represent the 19th century, both for and colonization. That would also make the congress part of the UP have some relevance to the UHV. For the part, it should still focus on Paris given the disproportionate influence it had over France and the world - also it's a pretty unique goal to push past Legendary culture.

So my tentative UHV, simplified from what I posted a while ago, would be something like:
1) Ancien Regime: Have Legendary culture in Paris and settle ten cities in the Americas by 1715 AD.
2) The Napoleonic Empire: Conquer or vassalize 40% of Europe (POSSIBLE ADD-ON: and settle twelve Great Statesmen and Military Instructors) by 1815 AD.
3) Belle Epoque: Generate 10,000 culture per turn in Paris, conquer ten cities in Africa, Asia and Oceania and flip ten others by diplomacy or culture by 1915 AD.

 

[Orbii]

Off topic, but your suggestion on France UHV2 reminds me that the Ottomans' UHV3 is waaaaaaay too easy, especially if the Byzantines and Arabs settled a lot of Great Generals. It could definitely use an extra goal to it.

 

[Hickman888]

- I agree that France is on the easier side. It's a civ with a lot of time to even begin working toward its UHV (outside of getting Notre-Dame), it has excellent modifiers like England but also a much larger territory at start. I agree shrinking its medieval core would be good for both balance and historical reasons, though getting a large medieval empire like you did should also be harder on your maintenance.
- One factor though from your playthrough is that Italy was vulnerable, which allowed you to snowball (especially with Rome having that many Military Instructors!). I think giving 3000 BC post-Roman collapse Italy better defenders, on part with what it gets on the 600 AD scenario, would be a good start (to the chagrin of Charlemagne). Personally I would also revert the new conditional nature of the Italy spawn, but I imagine that was done for a reason.
- Similarly, medieval England could be more of a threat. Currently it's mostly a threat to Ireland, sometimes to an unprepared Brittany, and it's pretty vulnerable to an invasion.
- I'm not sure what you mean about the Paris Iron, I didn't notice a flip in your playthrough? Are you talking about the one near your eastern city of Nancy?
- You didn't need to go to the Maghreb given your conquests in Europe, but that's my own strategy when I'm feeling cheap about getting Marble and Stone. I'd argue Algeria should be settled faster and defended better, probably by the Moors. It's a territory with very high potential so it should not be that easy to get it.
- Maybe it has some relevance to the Mexican UHV, but personally I would remove the French conquest area in Mexico. The Franco-Mexican war was a dismal failure and I don't think France should be encouraged to conquer the Aztecs.

I've also argued before that France should have a more ambitious UHV, for both historical and balance reasons:
1) Ancien Regime: This one is fine, working on an early Legendary city gives the French game its flavor, but I'd argue that deadline should also incorporate the American colonization aspect, for reasons I detailed here.
2) The Napoleonic Empire: This is the real challenge of the UHV and should stay. As a possible, less important flavor aspect, I'd like to have some nod to the political legacy of the Revolution and Empire but that's hard to represent. Something could be done with civics but that's hard to balance, so Statesmen make more sense to me.
3) City of Lights: This one I have a problem with. There is zero challenge in a wonder race this late in the game as a dominant civ - it's possible to complete it around the deadline of the second goal, like you did. My suggestion is to have something to represent the 19th century, both for and colonization. That would also make the congress part of the UP have some relevance to the UHV. For the part, it should still focus on Paris given the disproportionate influence it had over France and the world - also it's a pretty unique goal to push past Legendary culture.

So my tentative UHV, simplified from what I posted a while ago, would be something like:
1) Ancien Regime: Have Legendary culture in Paris and settle ten cities in the Americas by 1715 AD.
2) The Napoleonic Empire: Conquer or vassalize 40% of Europe (POSSIBLE ADD-ON: and settle twelve Great Statesmen and Military Instructors) by 1815 AD.
3) Belle Epoque: Generate 10,000 culture per turn in Paris, conquer ten cities in Africa, Asia and Oceania and flip ten others by diplomacy or culture by 1915 AD.

Italy could use stronger defenders in 3000BC, I agree. I only had to deal with a couple of Archers in each city, who were no match for my Lancers. For the Italian spawn change, it did feel weird in my Byzantium game to have Italy be reborn out from under me, the Roman Empire, as I controlled the Italian peninsula. So I appreciate that change.

I also would like to see medieval England be more of a threat, but that seems unlikely, at the moment at least. France has a 32 turn head start on England, the AI would have to learn amphibious invasions, and I'd argue that island nations like England and Japan are those most hurt from losing the "train military with surplus " civic, as half of their tiles are water tiles, and thus void of .

Yeah, the Paris iron is weird. It never flipped to the Holy Romans, but it is clearly marked as in their flip zone, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Spoiler Paris Iron :

For your optional second goal, settling 12 Great Statesmen and Military Instructors seems like a lot, and it would definitely distract the player from using artists for the first goal, so I'm not sure about that one.

For the wonder goal, I agree with you. Looking at their list of wonders, they are all very powerful and/or conducive to getting Legendary culture in Paris anyways, so that even if those wonders weren't an explicit goal, I would probably still construct them. I don't know if the goal is worth changing or not, because at least this encourages them all to be built in Paris, which does make it slightly harder. But winning as quickly as I did in 1812, I really didn't have to worry about colonizing the Caribbean, Africa, Indochina. I only had time to concern myself with Europe and North America, and then it was over. I like your idea of flipping cities through the Congress or through culture, I don't think we have another goal like that in the mod. Well, I guess Canada and flipping that British city, but we could use some more goals of that nature.

 

[Dracosolon]

I actually managed fifteen Statesmen+Military Instructors in my test run, but then again I have a strategy opposite to you: building tall with few cities and a wonder-rich Paris (Notre Dame/Santa Maria/National College/Sistine Chapel/Versailles/Louvre/National Gallery - this probably isn't possible with the 3000 BC start) in the Medieval and Renaissance eras, settling America early and capitulating everyone around me once I've unlocked Gendarmes and Gribeauvals (two UUs that go great together, thanks to their 2). You meanwhile had a very aggressive continuous expansion from early on. Very impressive territory but that means you were a lot more reliant on golden ages.

One thing I like about the Statesman/General part is it has synergy with historical elements: the Salon UB, Versailles, the free Statesman from Representation, Democracy, Constitution/Stratocracy, Gendarmes' Leadership promotion, Nationalism and the associated National Monument, etc. Alternatively I'd like to do something with the civics of other civs to represent the spread of liberal ideas, but our options are limited here.

I agree that the UHV wonders are synergistic with a goal: Notre-Dame's bonus is civ-wide but it has a very respectable +10 so you probably want it in Paris anyway. Versailles, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Metropolitain are all better placed in a -oriented city. Too bad the last two come too late to be relevant to the UHV, though the Tower is still excellent for chaining golden ages.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

My thoughts on my French playthrough...

Flagged for Ellipsis Violation. You would use a colon, mister!

Otherwise I generally affirm all thoughts proffered.

EDIT: On reread I was struck by the Military Instructor idea and curious what the inspiration is. This should be heard not as a dispute but as a poll.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

To the France discussion I would add that, although of uncertain significance, one factor contributing to its ease is the persisting habit of the HRE to annihilate its starting army on Venice.

 

[Kott]

I have just won Dravidian's UHV and I would say it is too easy. I won on the turn 280. The capital size could be a bit larger. There can be more pirates as I had like 1 or 2 naval fights through the whole game.
The first goal (money and culture) though was ok, quite tight as it is.

 

[Kott]

As for the French, maybe require a city with 25k culture in Americas, Africa and Asia at some point of time in addition to 50k in Paris?

 

[AOS9001]

As for the French, maybe require a city with 25k culture in Americas, Africa and Asia at some point of time in addition to 50k in Paris?

Now that sounds like a fun challenge! It implicitly requires the player to cling to their colonial empire just like the French really did in the late 40s and 50s.

 

[Hickman888]

One thing I like about the Statesman/General part is it has synergy with historical elements: the Salon UB, Versailles, the free Statesman from Representation, Democracy, Constitution/Stratocracy, Gendarmes' Leadership promotion, Nationalism and the associated National Monument, etc. Alternatively I'd like to do something with the civics of other civs to represent the spread of liberal ideas, but our options are limited here.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I really think beelining Nationalism needs to be worked into the France historical game, somehow. As it is, the historical French player will beeline their tech to the top of the Industrial era tech tree, in order to unlock the Eiffel Tower and Metropolitain, completely neglecting Nationalism. I didn't research it at all! I suppose the easiest way to encourage researching Nationalism, would be to move the Triumphal Arch to Nationalism, and requiring the player to construct it in Paris. I don't know how feasible that is, plus maybe there's enough wonders at Nationalism as is. And I agree with that final sentence, although I'm not sure how to work that in, either.

Flagged for Ellipsis Violation. You would use a colon, mister!

Yeah… That’s a bad habit I picked up from my Chilean amiga, recently.

 

[I_Dragon]

- I agree that France is on the easier side. It's a civ with a lot of time to even begin working toward its UHV (outside of getting Notre-Dame), it has excellent modifiers like England but also a much larger territory at start. I agree shrinking its medieval core would be good for both balance and historical reasons, though getting a large medieval empire like you did should also be harder on your maintenance.
- One factor though from your playthrough is that Italy was vulnerable, which allowed you to snowball (especially with Rome having that many Military Instructors!). I think giving 3000 BC post-Roman collapse Italy better defenders, on part with what it gets on the 600 AD scenario, would be a good start (to the chagrin of Charlemagne). Personally I would also revert the new conditional nature of the Italy spawn, but I imagine that was done for a reason.

How about an unplayable Lombard spawn as a check on easy expansion into Italy . If the Celts are still alive, give them a renewed interest in expanding back into former Roman lands and settling/recapturing Brittany (and Britain, although the Romans never seem to get there) so it has to be taken through war. And maybe give the original 3000BC Celts a bigger priority of settling Brittany. I've seen the Celts still be alive sometimes in France, but immediately get killed by the French spawn flipping their cities, if they had a non-flip city in Brittany they could maybe provide more of a challenge than just the usual empty space

 

[TsimTsigal]

Custom Houses discount actually makes a lot of sense. It gives you incentive to out governement effort (building) into improving trade efficency rather than relying on private initiative.

Merchant Trade definitely should have a minor nerf. Move Lighthouse discount to Regulated (making it more appealing for maritime powers) and nerf Merchant bonus to +1?

 

[Dracosolon]

For Regulated Trade, it makes sense that a civic that gives a multiplier boost to your capital would get comparatively less interesting the more cities you have. Having it boost instead of would at least work well with Trading Company (and also shrines). There were also discussions a while ago of a bonus in capital per number of colonies (and possibly vassal cities as well?). Other buildings that could be discounted: Post Office, Bank, Warehouse.

I think we'd need a list of which civilizations in which era should historically adopt the civic vs Merchant Trade and later Free Enterprise. Mostly colonial empires?

On another note: Hegemony giving a boost to Jails is powerful for large empire, maybe a bit too much relative to Colonialism. Currently the building is available for free in the Global era, maybe that should be Industrial? It has been remarked before that the Global era shouldn't be better than Industrial for maintenance/stability, considering the history of colonialism.

 

[Zaddy]

The Regulated Trade + Bureau combo was indeed too powerful and deserved to be nerfed, but I think 35% is a bit too low now. You now have to be very small for the civic to make sense. I think they could both go up to +40% personally.