Denmark

[infidel88]

You may say whatever you want, as we are criticizing your child and natural reaction of parent nowadays is blaming everyone beside child, but I believe we are working for benefit of everyone, who plays this mod and its modmods. That's why I decided to skip some things from past.
If you want it in points. I believe, and no - it's not checked in code:
1) AI doesn't know they can get more yields from pillaging tiles than conquering cities. The same way AI going for CV doesn't understand that creating a city in arctic just to grab 1 crab or 2 oil is not beneficial in long term.
2) AI doesn't know they can pillage without losing movement. And should pillage even if it doesn't need healing. If AI thinks "I will not pillage that tile, as I may need it for healing in 20 turns", that's wrong thinking, especially for Danes. Example I mentioned above, when I had Danish tercio wondering through my land for 2 turns is perfect example for that. I was able to destroy it with my cities, while normally it would pillage at least 4 tiles, extending it's life by 1 turn and damaging my empire meanwhile. I also believe adding WW from pillaging didn't help.
3) Same as 2 goes for navy units. They were rotating around themselves in picture I posted above and yet noone used 1 movement (outta 5 or 6 they had) just to pillage improvement.
4) You said AI doesn't see what I see. Well, they had open borders before declaring war and tercio wandering around my island. It's not like I could've hidden my units somewhere in 4-city Empire. And maybe, just maybe, AI should scout with... scouting units? And go with vision on those units?
5) And same as 4 can be said about navy. AI is "exploring" with everything. It's not like human where I have 2 or 3 caravels with mobility and navigation and 2-3 scouts doing the same work AI does with like 20 units built for war.

6) I understand Danes will hit critical point if we give to runestones. No matter if it's 1 or 5 per turn. In first case, this building will be fairly useless for a long time, in other case, it will become nuclear OP quite early. But it's fun and even if Denmark AI has to be excluded from my games as AI-not-friendly, I am willing to accept it, as it's UA is unique and fun. But maybe I expect too much yields or uniqueness from UU, UB and UI.

And before you say "according to code, AI should work ok". Well... clearly it isn't. My observations (yes, just observations) are based on hours of gameplay and those problems I mentioned are not incidents. If you think this happened once I care enough to write elaborates about it... You're better than this.

PS. This below is an incident and I don't even bother to post it, as I understand this can happen. I treat it like human misclick.

 

[tothePAIN]

Just dawned on me as I was looking at the code - I've got the solution: I'm going to 'Dojo' the Runestone, make it so that the pillage bonuses from a unit apply to the city the unit is from. We can actually bump the values up to appreciable levels that way. I'll do the same for the Colosseum/Acropolis. No reason to have those out-of-control values when we can easily control them with directed yields.

G

@Gazebo

Thanks for your work on VP. I'm not a vocal user of the forum. I'm sure there are others like me who greatly enjoy this game so much more with your modifications.

The idea to change the runestone to act like the dojo is an interesting one. I have a few questions.

1. Is there an issue with rushing wonders I'm the capital with a concentrated pillage if all tiles can be pillaged again? Since the capital often creates the most units usually. Or is that fine?

2. If a unit is killed by a city, not a unit (for Rome and Greece), would the bonuses go to that city?

 

[pineappledan]

Just dawned on me as I was looking at the code - I've got the solution: I'm going to 'Dojo' the Runestone, make it so that the pillage bonuses from a unit apply to the city the unit is from. We can actually bump the values up to appreciable levels that way. I'll do the same for the Colosseum/Acropolis. No reason to have those out-of-control values when we can easily control them with directed yields.

You'll have to figure something out for Prora... Again.

While I don't see this as a bad solution for the YieldOnPillaging, I don't see why the YieldsOnVictory is getting caught in the crossfire here.

• No one has complained about yields on kill being out of hand, as far as I can see. People don't have a problem with Greece or Rome.
• Rome and Greece are pushed wide by these buildings, which is the intent of the design. This will undercut the intent for these civs, no?
• You will have to figure out a new balanced equilibrium for these numbers, even though no one ever asked for a change in the first place
• Orders uses Yield on Kills too. Likewise, I am not sure why you would re-tweak this building when no one asked for a change

Until VP goes 'gold,' I consider any of the expanded API elements like new tables to be subject to some changes/tweaks for the purposes of promoting balance, even outside of the VP. If someone is using these tables specifically for their 'global' nature, we can address that, but I make new tables very rarely these days for memory purposes.

I am using this table for a national wonder in 4UC (German Teutonic Order). It gives 25 on kill in 1 city. So that's 1 example at least. I can make a workaround, but I'd rather not.

As I mentioned before, Prora already depends on the global nature of these triggers, and will be hurt by 'Dojo'ing that table. Honestly, It would be just as well if the yields on pillage was removed entirely from Prora; I don't think anyone would miss it.

 

[Gazebo]

i get that, i didnt say anything when you replaced the authority unit-per-citizen table and there have been other apple to orange table changes in the not too distant past i remain silent about as well including the resource only pillaging because frankly i dont consider them worth posting about. but please lets not bring up 'gold'. If a table exists in the CP for X amount of years unchanged, and works perfectly and is being used, it would be nice to let that table be- a modder somewhere is likely already making use of it as it is.

and yes, in this case i am specifically using the yieldfromvictory / pillage tables for the global nature, as they currently function, and im perfectly happy with these apples. replacing them would be an unwelcome bucket of oranges. do with that information as you will =)

if tables must be cut hopefully it wont be something as basic as the way these building tables have been operating, and having multiple ways of handling super common actions like killing/pillaging are fine. Personally i think there is more eclectic chaff in the coreadditions file that could be cut if needed (how often am i gonna yieldfromspydefense, and comes to mind i remember you acquiesced to a huge chunk of trait additions to another modder who'd already done the work not so long ago... and frankly some of those tables looked dubious) nor do i think the land/sea pillage distinction is worth memory either, but i know its all subjective. Subjective as it is, hopefully table seniority counts for something.

That's a lot of text that could be reduced to 'hey, mind keeping the global version of this around? I'd appreciate it.'

You may say whatever you want, as we are criticizing your child and natural reaction of parent nowadays is blaming everyone beside child

So infantile.

If you want it in points. I believe, and no - it's not checked in code:
1) AI doesn't know they can get more yields from pillaging tiles than conquering cities. The same way AI going for CV doesn't understand that creating a city in arctic just to grab 1 crab or 2 oil is not beneficial in long term.
2) AI doesn't know they can pillage without losing movement. And should pillage even if it doesn't need healing. If AI thinks "I will not pillage that tile, as I may need it for healing in 20 turns", that's wrong thinking, especially for Danes. Example I mentioned above, when I had Danish tercio wondering through my land for 2 turns is perfect example for that. I was able to destroy it with my cities, while normally it would pillage at least 4 tiles, extending it's life by 1 turn and damaging my empire meanwhile. I also believe adding WW from pillaging didn't help.
3) Same as 2 goes for navy units. They were rotating around themselves in picture I posted above and yet noone used 1 movement (outta 5 or 6 they had) just to pillage improvement.
4) You said AI doesn't see what I see. Well, they had open borders before declaring war and tercio wandering around my island. It's not like I could've hidden my units somewhere in 4-city Empire. And maybe, just maybe, AI should scout with... scouting units? And go with vision on those units?
5) And same as 4 can be said about navy. AI is "exploring" with everything. It's not like human where I have 2 or 3 caravels with mobility and navigation and 2-3 scouts doing the same work AI does with like 20 units built for war.

6) I understand Danes will hit critical point if we give to runestones. No matter if it's 1 or 5 per turn. In first case, this building will be fairly useless for a long time, in other case, it will become nuclear OP quite early. But it's fun and even if Denmark AI has to be excluded from my games as AI-not-friendly, I am willing to accept it, as it's UA is unique and fun. But maybe I expect too much yields or uniqueness from UU, UB and UI.

1. I don't think that's a distinction worth approximating for the AI. That's also two different issues. The AI is encouraged to slow settling if pursuing a CV - sometimes other operants will override that, but generally it listens.
2.) Yes, it does. See my other post about pillaging without healing - if too much is pillaged on the attack, it may not be able to sustain injured units via pillaging later. The AI does think ahead in that regard.
3.) I'll concede this, happily so - dug into the tactical AI code (I don't spend a lot of time there) and found two areas where I could make the AI more aggressively pillage at sea. We'll see if it helps.
4.) The AI does its best, but there are memory concerns with maintaining vision and using that vision to make choices. Suffice to say the AI 'simulates' dozens of maneuvers before choosing one, but it doesn't carry over knowledge between simulations because that would be cheating (it would be the equivalent of being able to take a free turn, see how it goes, and decide whether or not to act). This is an area where performance is king, so we have to tread lightly on AI foreknowledge.
5.) Huh?

6.) This is why I'm changing the function behind it - it allows the building to have big, but local, impact without feeling trivial.

You'll have to figure something out for Prora... Again.

While I don't see this as a bad solution for the YieldOnPillaging, I don't see why the YieldsOnVictory is getting caught in the crossfire here.

• No one has complained about yields on kill being out of hand, as far as I can see. People don't have a problem with Greece or Rome.
• Rome and Greece are pushed wide by these buildings, which is the intent of the design. This will undercut the intent for these civs, no?
• You will have to figure out a new balanced equilibrium for these numbers, even though no one ever asked for a change in the first place
• Orders uses Yield on Kills too. Likewise, I am not sure why you would re-tweak this building when no one asked for a change

I am using this table for a national wonder in 4UC (German Teutonic Order). It gives 25 on kill in 1 city. So that's 1 example at least. I can make a workaround, but I'd rather not.

As I mentioned before, Prora already depends on the global nature of these triggers, and will be hurt by 'Dojo'ing that table. Honestly, It would be just as well if the yields on pillage was removed entirely from Prora; I don't think anyone would miss it.

Actually, Rome/Greece were on my analysis block, they've been tippy top tier performers for AI warmongers. I'd rather see their bonus brought down a bit in width, and brought up in local potency, to help with this.

If you need the tables, I'll see what I can do.

G

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo

Thanks for your work on VP. I'm not a vocal user of the forum. I'm sure there are others like me who greatly enjoy this game so much more with your modifications.

The idea to change the runestone to act like the dojo is an interesting one. I have a few questions.

1. Is there an issue with rushing wonders I'm the capital with a concentrated pillage if all tiles can be pillaged again? Since the capital often creates the most units usually. Or is that fine?

2. If a unit is killed by a city, not a unit (for Rome and Greece), would the bonuses go to that city?

1. I think it's fine - if a player chooses to pursue this, I think it creates a more interesting dynamic than the present situation.
2. Yes.

 

[chicorbeef]

Getting a ton of concentrated in a single city is going to make wonder-building really easy, as long as you can keep up in tech. Getting 100 per turn in your Capital in Medieval can be kind of an issue.

I still really like the old idea of getting instead of as a yield from the Runestones. is an empire-wide yield and generally causes less issues than concentrated .

 

[Gazebo]

Getting a ton of concentrated in a single city is going to make wonder-building really easy, as long as you can keep up in tech. Getting 100 per turn in your Capital in Medieval can be kind of an issue.

I still really like the old idea of getting instead of as a yield from the Runestones. is an empire-wide yield and generally causes less issues than concentrated .

I'm fine with altering the yields away from Production, but I do think this is a stronger bedrock for us (the new directed yield system).

G

 

[chicorbeef]

I'm fine with altering the yields away from Production, but I do think this is a stronger bedrock for us (the new directed yield system).

G

I agree.

Do you have any plan for the from city attack or are you going to let that stay? I personally would like to see it go because the fact it's available on all units opens it up to abuse via Pathfinders/Scouts and whatnot and being available on every unit is just a bit much and overlaps with Songhai. If Denmark gets from Runestones then gutting out this would prevent yield bloat a little bit.

 

[Gazebo]

I agree.

Do you have any plan for the from city attack or are you going to let that stay? I personally would like to see it go because the fact it's available on all units opens it up to abuse via Pathfinders/Scouts and whatnot and being available on every unit is just a bit much and overlaps with Songhai. If Denmark gets from Runestones then gutting out this would prevent yield bloat a little bit.

If we flip the Runestone to Gold, bump it up so it is substantial enough to matter, then yeah, I can see a case for removing city attack gold.

 

[Deadstarre]

That's a lot of text that could be reduced to 'hey, mind keeping the global version of this around? I'd appreciate it.'

If you need the tables, I'll see what I can do.

G

I mean thats literally what I started with, then you retorted with memory usage... so figured i had to make a case. anyway im glad the fruit is on the same page here. While i'm posting then and if that stuff means anything to you then, hey, mind bringing back the old function of the Belief_YieldFromConversion table somehow? I'd appreciate it =) cheers

 

[Gazebo]

I mean thats literally what I started with, then you retorted with memory usage... so figured i had to make a case. anyway im glad the fruit is on the same page here. While i'm posting then and if that stuff means anything to you then, hey, mind bringing back the old function of the Belief_YieldFromConversion table somehow? I'd appreciate it =) cheers

What did that old table do?

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I'm thinking 25p/25c to start, no? Since it's only going to one city?

G

If +Greece/Rome/Denmark will get a rework is it possible to make it for instance 20/20 + 1xNumber of cities for Denmark? So 25 at 5 cities, 35 at 15 cities, etc. A similar solution could exist to Denmark and Rome. This way we'd keep some wide scaling.

 

[Deadstarre]

What did that old table do?

G

I believe you outlined the change right here - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/going-for-gold-founder-beliefs.632506/page-2#post-15131729

it used to be a simple yield x city, then it was replaced with a ramping exponential model. Never said anything but I enjoyed having access to the old table.

 

[Gazebo]

If +Greece/Rome/Denmark will get a rework is it possible to make it for instance 20/20 + 1xNumber of cities for Denmark? So 25 at 5 cities, 35 at 15 cities, etc. A similar solution could exist to Denmark and Rome. This way we'd keep some wide scaling.

As it stands, there's no intrinsic code for such an effect - it'd have to be added via a new trait table. Let's see how this stage of the balance swing treats it, and go from there. I feel like there's intrinsic value to expanding already (for warmongers), not 100% sure it'll be a necessary incentive.

 

[Gazebo]

I believe you outlined the change right here - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/going-for-gold-founder-beliefs.632506/page-2#post-15131729

it used to be a simple yield x city, then it was replaced with a ramping exponential model. Never said anything but I enjoyed having access to the old table.

Make a github post for me and I'll look - I'd probably have to make a new table for it, which is fine, but I'd need to look either way. Beliefs are relatively lean because of how they're stored/accessed.

G

 

[pineappledan]

My last hang up w.r.t. localizing yields is this: Outside of the fringe instance when a city last hits a unit, localized yields to the city where the unit is built is only slightly different from yields on kill via a promotion.

In other words, you can get a 90% identical effect by having the Acropolis give all units built in city a new promotion which gives X on kill. The thing that makes the building table useful is that it scales per building on empire, and therefore behaves differently than yields on kill provided via policy or unit promotion. The only thing that is different is that a yield on kill via a building table can provide control over local effects on the yield ( //). A table already exists which funnels local yields onto the capital city (Egyptian War Chariot), but global yields ( ////GGpoints/GApoints) wouldn't ever be affected.

So yeah. I'm not really a fan of this idea because you can mostly accomplish this by simply giving promotions via existing building mechanics, then have that promotion do the work

 

[Gazebo]

My last hang up w.r.t. localizing yields is this: Outside of the fringe instance when a city last hits a unit, localized yields to the city where the unit is built is only slightly different from yields on kill via a promotion.

In other words, you can get a 90% identical effect by having the Acropolis give all units built in city a new promotion which gives X on kill. The thing that makes the building table useful is that it scales per building on empire, and therefore behaves differently than yields on kill provided via policy or unit promotion. The only thing that is different is that a yield on kill via a building table can provide control over local effects on the yield ( //). A table already exists which funnels local yields onto the capital city (Egyptian War Chariot), but global yields ( ////GGpoints/GApoints) wouldn't ever be affected.

So yeah. I'm not really a fan of this idea because you can mostly accomplish this by simply giving promotions via existing building mechanics, then have that promotion do the work

It does circumvent promotion bloat tho, and it’s a faster function for combat (in terms of performance).

After some restructuring I got local and global variants of those two tables working anyways, so don’t fret.

 

[azum4roll]

Do conscripted units and CS gift units give yields on pillage?

 

[tu_79]

Excuse, I come late to the discussion, so I skipped some parts of it.

What I understand is that human almost always find ways to do things better than a script. That is what handicaps are for.

But then we have some parts of the mechanics that humans can do still better than in any other parts. Let's agree that pillaging is one of those things that humans can do even better than other mechanics.
In this case, any civ whose toolkit depends on pillaging is always going to be relatively stronger in human hands. If we balance with AI, it's overpowered in human hands. If we nerf it because humans are too strong, it becomes underpowered when played by the AI.

I see three ways for dealing with the problem.

1. Avoid using pillaging as an unique ability. Boring.
2. Make AI better at pillaging until the margin benefit is the same as any other mechanic. Difficult. Plus, there are other mechanics that need to be addressed if we take this step.
3. Give different handicaps to the civ when played by humans. Not sure whether it is feasible.

If #3 were possible, then we could let Gazebo balance AI among them, and then ask for tweaks to Denmark human handicaps if it turns out to be unbalanced.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Getting 100 / per pillaged tile in industrial would lead to the result, I need only pillaging 17 tiles to insta-build the Slater Mill (in my current game). A tercio in industrial cost 300 . Sending a tercio as suicide mission into enemy lands would need only 3 times pillaging to regain the cost of it, plus 300 culture, which would be half of my current culture production.
(Would this make Denmark to some weird ISIS culture civ? )

What I want to say is, directed yields may not be as funny as yields for every city, but would solve the possible huge increase of yields from wide empires. So it looks like a good idea.
But it doesnt change the fact, the human will be still much much better in pillaging and gaining yields from it than the AI. This problem isnt solved at all. Iam sorry for my misstrust yesterday, maybe you can suppress the forward thinking of the AI to save pillaging for damaged units, maybe you can tweak some numbers. But its necessary to work on the AI in this aspect, not only by the gained yields. I hope you think the same.

Picking hammer for the runestone may be too strong, but choosing gold instead looks again odd. If you pick gold for the runestone, its redundant to the city attack ability, but removing the city attack ability completly, would remove that part the AI is maybe mainly getting an advantage from, cause its a normal AI behavior to attack cities. (To remove the most abusable part, make this ability only work on major civs cities too)
Iam still in favor to split the yields to more diversity, and not generating odd amounts of 2 single yields.
In my current Byzantium game with 6 cities, I generate in total an amount of 600-800, 900, 606, 380, 620 , 430 per turn in mid industrial.
Instead of 25 /, you could set it to 15 / and 10 /. If I want to skip a full turn of my empire, I would need to pillage around 15 improvements. A typical industrial age city will have around 20 improvements, so pillaging 75% of the improvements of one city should push your whole empire one whole turn ahead (except science). Sounds fair.
I could also imagine some funny weird yield gain like 4 / + 7 / + 10/.