Early vs Late difficulty balancing

[Txurce]

Speaking as a peaceful type player generally, personally for me the late game is about sitting back and admiring my glorious empire without getting entangled in wars if possible.

I like having tons of gold and science and building what I want and seeing huge multipliers and numbers. That is the joy for me. To that end, war is something I want to avoid.

I got a big kick out of this. I also think you are far from alone!

 

[Thalassicus]

The Barbarian Rebellions might just feel like Whack-a-mole, so I agree that it's not necessarily more fun or interesting.

I thought Barbs were primarily meant to be an early-game menace and naturally die out as the map was discovered/settled. That said, the idea of integrated Partisans arising from puppet cities (and perhaps something similar for large cities) later in the game sound like they could well be fun, as long as they don't become too tedious to deal with during non-warmonger games.

Speaking as a peaceful type player generally, personally for me the late game is about sitting back and admiring my glorious empire without getting entangled in wars if possible.

So while I like the idea of rebels popping up next to puppet states, I wouldn't want a general rebellion system in the game to encourage late game difficulty.

Based on this and other feedback in this thread, I think I'll leave barbarians as they are for now, and explore other ways to make the late game challenging.

 

[Txurce]

Based on this and other feedback in this thread, I think I'll leave barbarians as they are for now, and explore other ways to make the late game challenging.

Keep in mind it seems plenty challenging right now!

 

[MortalD]

Based on this and other feedback in this thread, I think I'll leave barbarians as they are for now, and explore other ways to make the late game challenging.

Can't 100 % agree. I for example love the challenge barbs bring early on.
For that reason i always avoid Honor tree as it was giving me combat boost i dint wish for. But now its no longer my choice as i get nasty 20 % by default.
If possible i would love to ask to lower that combat bonus back to 10 % for human player at least on immortal+ difficulty setting.

On side note : Whats with the "big brother" eye on Honor opener? I was always thinking that its just "stupid" that we get to know where every single barb camp is located.
Bye bye to surprise barb attack as u know b4hand where they camp just spawned.
Another reason to never pick that Policy for me.

Well hmm just shearing.

update : Or even better idea would be to give us choice in form of option in Options.sql to set the barb combat bonus.
+20/15/10/0 or even -10% ( my units are promoted and theirs not ).

 

[AlextheGr8]

i never liked barbs. only positive is it makes the ai not be able to expand so fast and search all the map. negatives are in the long run the barbs hurt me more than the ai, always seem to pick on me more. while they dont seem to really bother a large ai country.

 

[Thalassicus]

Or even better idea would be to give us choice in form of option in Options.sql to set the barb combat bonus.

This is not very feasible because it depends on difficulty level... but you can change it in the vem/wwgd/HandicapInfos.xml file.

 

[MortalD]

True enough. And will do

 

[Seek]

I find the 20% bonus vs barbs trivializes them somewhat as well.

 

[Txurce]

I find the 20% bonus vs barbs trivializes them somewhat as well.

Me, too. I've had a Scout knock an Archer into the red by hitting him first. Thal, I know you want to address the issues of those who feel overwhelmed, but maybe dropping to 15% will work better.

 

[Zaldron]

Me, too. I've had a Scout knock an Archer into the red by hitting him first. Thal, I know you want to address the issues of those who feel overwhelmed, but maybe dropping to 15% will work better.

I think he was actually trying to make honor not a no-brainer opener.

 

[Seek]

I almost never pick Honor unless planning on some "active diplomacy". I think simply lowering the policy bonus would be fine.

 

[MortalD]

10 % as base and rest in honor was good.

If someone had problem with barbs he could always go invest that 1 policy.

 

[Jaybe]

Manifesto: Barbs are 'minor civs.'

No one is playing 'peaceful' games (unless they aren't attacking barbs).

Don't like all the barbs pestering you but not any of the AI? Then edit
VEM_VanillaEnhancedMod/Barbarians/VEB_General.xml
so that BarbarianBonus & AIBarbarianBonus are equal at your difficulty level (I prefer a value of zero).

caveat: I haven't played a v137 game yet. In fact, I just finished a month-long 131.14 game.

 

[Zaldron]

I almost never pick Honor unless planning on some "active diplomacy". I think simply lowering the policy bonus would be fine.

I never picked it until recently when it was mentioned in the forums as being powerful. After trying it I have to say that at 20% plus culture plus camp reveal it was definitely OP. I'd be fine with 10% innate bonus and NO extra bonus on honor at all.

 

[Thalassicus]

The increase in basic barbarian bonus from 10% to 20% was added when I gave Barbarians the capability to heal and upgrade, and improved the units they build. I don't want to force players into a militaristic build order at the start of every game.

Don't like all the barbs pestering you but not any of the AI? Then edit
VEM_VanillaEnhancedMod/Barbarians/VEB_General.xml
so that BarbarianBonus & AIBarbarianBonus are equal at your difficulty level (I prefer a value of zero).

I strongly recommend to not reduce the AI variable below 50%. Depending on random luck, lower values can completely stall multiple AIs per game. On emperor difficulty I found some AIs had up to 5 settlers captured by barbarians before successfully settling a second city. They don't escort their settlers with sufficient military forces. I've been trying to change the "settler_escort" military formation without much success so far. If I can get them to escort their settlers better I'll alter the AI barb bonus.

You can see this problem in detail by using the tuner to run autoplay games with a revealed map. I discovered it while doing Games of the Month last year.

 

[Txurce]

I almost never pick Honor unless planning on some "active diplomacy". I think simply lowering the policy bonus would be fine.

I think he was actually trying to make honor not a no-brainer opener.

10 % as base and rest in honor was good.

I never picked it until recently when it was mentioned in the forums as being powerful. After trying it I have to say that at 20% plus culture plus camp reveal it was definitely OP. I'd be fine with 10% innate bonus and NO extra bonus on honor at all.

I'm also in favor of a lower basic barb bonus, and lower culture from Honor. The only counter-argument I see is that it's so much fun to rack up those pink points!

 

[Thalassicus]

I feel the openers are equally useful right now.

Tradition
+5 for the empire.
+5 for the capital (350% capital border expansion, 170% with a Monument).

Tradition
+2 per city for the empire.
+2 for each city (+inf% border expansion, 140% with Monuments).

Honor
Reveals barb camps.
+10% strength vs barbs.
+5 for the empire per of killed barbarians.
No border expansion bonus.
​

The Tradition/Liberty border bonuses are very powerful with current expansion rates. To match Tradition's empire culture per turn with Honor we must kill 1 brute every 6 turns. That's an achievable number, but not extraordinary.