GEM Stage 1: Terrain

[mitsho]

I do think that the stages are a good idea, and I do think they deserve a thread each, I'm free to do it myself, hope that's ok Here's my guess btw for the next stages

Spoiler :

1. Terrain
2. Research
3. Cities (Buildings, Wonders)
4. Armies
5. Leaders
6. Diplomacy
7. Religion and Espionage
8. What Would Gandhi Do (AI enhancements)
9. Opportunities

(I do think Nr. 8 is the most important one, but I also think it benefits a lot from being done after the other ones)

Now here's Thal's post

GEM Stages

I’m going to roll out the G&K Enhanced Mod (GEM) in stages. The first stage will be the terrain section of the mod. I should have it up on the workshop sometime in the next few days. Once the terrain stage is tested, I will add the next stage of the mod to that workshop file. This should spread out the workload so I don’t get burned out like I did with updating all of Civup at once for G&K.

The terrain stage will include the following changes from VEM:

• Strategic resources distributed by player territory.
• Coal, Oil, and Aluminum revealed earlier.
• More valuable Great Person improvements.
• Early resources balanced in yield value.
• 10% rough terrain defense bonus, 20% flat defense penalty.
• Camps require Archery instead of Trapping.
• More citystates on mainland for Continents-Plus and Pangaea-Plus maps.
• Villages returned to their proper place in the early game.
• Mine, lumbermill, and village tech bonuses spread out across a longer time.
• Terrain balance:
• Rivers: +1 only when improved.
• Coastlines: more atolls/isles.
• Islands: more resources.
• Deserts: 2 basic move cost, +1 on freshwater tiles, +1 on freshwater resources, Oasis value depends on surrounding desert.
• Snow: +2 on snow hills.
• Floodplains remain under newly-founded cities.

My Comments:

• Reading that list reminds me of why VEM is better than Vanilla... Especially the desert movement and the mainland city states.
• Mercantile City States need 1 or 2 more luxuries for variety, not gameplay reasons. Either add new ones in (only icon needed* for e.g. Tea/Coffee/Exotic Birds/Persian Carpets/Teak Wood/Opium) or move things like Dye to city states.
• Copper stands out as a strange luxury. I would like to make it similar to Marble, but lowering cost times for units. Is that possible? It would also be a buff to warmongers.
• Desert and especially Oasis may be stronger now in G&K, right? Are they too strong with a theoretical Petra? Or will that wonder get "nerfed"?
• Is the Village Science element in there or will they be returned to purely gold? Or is that something for the Research stage?
• The biggest discussion will probably revolve around the distribution of strategic ressources. I do think it would be a bad idea to change the style of the system in place completely at this point. It also changes gameplay a whole lot. My middle-of-the-way change would be to make it a bit more random, i.e. instead of being granted 6 irons in 2 deposits in your region, there may be from 4-8 in 2-4 deposits. But I don't think that is urgent right now.

(* I know only... But I mean that there's no graphics needed for when the ressource appears on a terrain as the city states cannot be razed)

 

[Txurce]

From Thal's web site, edited:

I’m going to roll out the G&K Enhanced Mod (GEM) in stages. The terrain stage will include the following changes from VEM:

* Strategic resources distributed by player territory.
* Coal, Oil, and Aluminum revealed earlier.
* Early resources balanced in yield value.
* Camps require Archery instead of Trapping.
* Villages returned to their proper place in the early game.

[*]Is the Village Science element in there or will they be returned to purely gold? Or is that something for the Research stage?

[*]The biggest discussion will probably revolve around the distribution of strategic ressources. I do think it would be a bad idea to change the style of the system in place completely at this point.

GEM started as VEM, an enhancement of vanilla. I recall how VEM had to almost start over after major vanilla patches, because vanilla was the agreed-upon "base." Over time the mod became its own beast, no longer working from vanilla, but off its own precedents. When mitsho says "I do think it would be a bad idea to change the style of the system in place completely at this point," I'm not sure if the system he means is G&K or VEM. But when Thal says "Villages returned to their proper place in the early game," it's pretty clear, by claiming precedence, that the mod has declared its independence from vanilla. This is to be expected, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it should be taken into account when compiling its pros and cons.

I feel that Thal's resource balancing leads to stale gameplay, but am fully aware that this view is as subjective as the opposite, and was pretty certain that Thal didn't intend to change it. I could say the same thing about the early reveals of late-game strategics, which seem like a cheat to me. But changes like "Camps require Archery instead of Trapping" and "Villages returned to their proper place in the early game" strike me as myopic, not giving G&K the credit it's due.

With the increased need for city defense in G&K, Archery is more necessary than ever, so keeping Camps in Trapping creates better balance, in my opinion.

I also think Villages were moved back to avoid excessive REX. There are too many Pantheon and Religion beliefs that could make early villages OP. If GEM Villages keep the research mechanic that VEM gave them, then combining it with Messenger of the Gods is a prescription for ICS - especially coupled with the mod's allowing tighter city placement than G&K does.

The latter hypothesis is an example of why it makes sense for me to have mods work off the base, rather than off a pre-G&K mod. It would seem really, really hard to project how the bulk of an old system can overlay a much more complex new one, and largely benefit it. But again, human nature and time constraints make this a tough pill to swallow. The alternative - starting with non-conflicting items like adjusting terrain combat bonuses and Continents Plus CS locations, and discussing the rest individually - would be a lot of effort, and seemingly not worth it for a ship that sailed a long time ago.

 

[Zaldron]

From Thal's web site, edited:I feel that Thal's resource balancing leads to stale gameplay, but am fully aware that this view is as subjective as the opposite, and was pretty certain that Thal had no intention of changing it. I could say the same thing about the early reveals of late-game strategics, which seem like a flat-out cheat to me.

The rebalancing may feel slightly more stale, but on the other hand is it FUN to have 0 iron, coal, and uranium but 28 aluminum? This happened to me in a recent base G&K game. Even the nearby CSes had no iron or uranium (and 3 coal as I recall).

I do agree that coal reveals too early, but I think the other reveals like iron at BW are solid in general.

EDIT: I haven't played enough yet but I'd be happy to keep villages at guilds for a while to see how it plays out.

 

[jacktannery]

i agree stongly with Txurce here. Perhaps we can differentiate between items on Thal's list (1. Terrain) which everyone agrees should definitely by in GEM, and items which might benefit from further discussion.

For me, the items Thal lists under 'Terrain balance' are the clear crucial aspects of VEM/GEM, and these should be brought back (I don't think that they will make deserts overpowered, even with Petra). I also think the citystate location movements and the island-improvement aspects of VEM should be retained in GEM as these make the game better without a downside.

Everything else should be discussed in the context of G&K before we bring it up - G&K is a slightly different game to CIVV Vanilla. In particular, the 'proper place' of villages is not necessarily where VEM had it - I think that G&K's changes to make the ancient period gold-poor (and thus make it hard to field an army) are brilliant and that VEM should retain this and build on it, rather than dismissing it instantly.

Regarding the 'Coal, Oil, and Aluminum revealed earlier'. I was among those who argued for this originally, and I think it improves the game by reducing the chance element and allowing you to establish new colonies if you need to, in time for the units that require those resources; I think this makes the game more interesting.

 

[mitsho]

I do agree that coal reveals too early, but I think the other reveals like iron at BW are solid in general.

The reasons for the early coal reveal was 1) making the forge more useful by giving it more tiles it enhances and reveal them when the forge comes around and 2) since coal is often found on islands giving you enough time to create a settler, send it ther, found the city and hook up the tile if wanted. For Nr. 2 you can push the reveal back to synch it more with how other strategic ressources are handled respective to their units. For Nr. 1 we now have copper as another ressource possibly enhanced by the forge. So Thal can push back coal again a bit, in my mind.

When mitsho says "I do think it would be a bad idea to change the style of the system in place completely at this point," I'm not sure if the system he means is G&K or VEM.

Well I was referring to the VEM system, I think

Otherwise I do agree with the points bring up and I do think the best maxime is "Return to Vanilla G&K where possible". And I do think one can visit each Stage twice without big problems. (I don't have time for a deeper response right now).

 

[sukritact]

• Mercantile City States need 1 or 2 more luxuries for variety, not gameplay reasons. Either add new ones in (only icon needed* for e.g. Tea/Coffee/Exotic Birds/Persian Carpets/Teak Wood/Opium) or move things like Dye to city states.
• Copper stands out as a strange luxury. I would like to make it similar to Marble, but lowering cost times for units. Is that possible? It would also be a buff to warmongers.
• The biggest discussion will probably revolve around the distribution of strategic ressources. I do think it would be a bad idea to change the style of the system in place completely at this point. It also changes gameplay a whole lot. My middle-of-the-way change would be to make it a bit more random, i.e. instead of being granted 6 irons in 2 deposits in your region, there may be from 4-8 in 2-4 deposits. But I don't think that is urgent right now.

These are especially interesting for me. I really like the idea of faster unit production with copper, as well as adding more luxury resources for mercantile city states (it does get boring with only porcelain and jewelry, and I could make the icons if they're wanted)

And personally, playing Gods and Kings recently, I've enjoyed the fact that you don't have a little bit of everything. The fact that you don't have everything means that you will have to use some diplomacy, expansion or brute force to get more of what you're lacking. I think the system just needs tweaking rather than a complete rework. It at least should ensure that the Civs will be able to use their unique units and that they will be able to upgrade them. And the aluminum requirement should be removed for the spaceship parts; it's ridiculous that you need a resource to win at all.

 

[rhammer640]

Maybe there could be a compromise made for resource distribution.

We keep the VEM resource placement as a base but add small varieties to it so that on some games you are lacking in a resource and some you have a bit more (like 5% of starts or something), but for the most part it would stay as in VEM. That would allow the uncertainty without it being crazy like none of one and 10 of another.

 

[mystikx21]

And the aluminum requirement should be removed for the spaceship parts; it's ridiculous that you need a resource to win at all.

Vanilla GK has recycling centers that provide it for free now. I'm not sure that this is really an obstacle so much as adding or retaining opportunity to win without access to the resource but at a slight cost (of buying/building an additional building). If the overall unit tree is rescaled somewhat to balance oil and alum, I'm not sure why this would be a serious problem.

I do second moving copper from a luxury resource. It should be a regular bonus tile like cows/wheat but could still be treated with the forge-metal working bonus too. I'm not sure it needs to increase unit speed the way marble does for wonders as the building would do that and VEM made blast furnances (forges) buildable anywhere as is. We could perhaps reduce it back to something like circuses, where it gives those advantages to cities with copper/coal/iron but not others.

Moving that luxury point to a mercantile option could prioritize CS diplomacy even more in some games. One coded part that would have to be considered is that CS quests offer some advantages for hooking up porcelain or jewelry at present. Presumably this could add an option for other CS dependent luxuries.

 

[gunnergoz]

I'd like copper to be necessary to build spearmen and sailing frigates and ships of the line, but with no quantification of source material, i.e. one copper source could yield unlimited units.

Stone (available from any source) should be necessary to build Stonehenge, Pyramid and Great Wall wonders, city walls and castles, on the same unlimited basis. If the stone is a local city resource, then there could be a 10% decrease in building time.

Marble (also available from any source, including importation) should be necessary to build many wonders such as Oracle, Great Library, Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel, etc. If the marble is a local city resource then the decreased building time bonus would apply too.

 

[rhammer640]

I'd like copper to be necessary to build spearmen and sailing frigates and ships of the line, but with no quantification of source material, i.e. one copper source could yield unlimited units.

Stone (available from any source) should be necessary to build Stonehenge, Pyramid and Great Wall wonders, city walls and castles, on the same unlimited basis. If the stone is a local city resource, then there could be a 10% decrease in building time.

Marble (also available from any source, including importation) should be necessary to build many wonders such as Oracle, Great Library, Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel, etc. If the marble is a local city resource then the decreased building time bonus would apply too.

Not sure how the AI would handle needing resources to build wonders and would probably favor the human too much getting early wonders, its a cool idea though.

 

[mystikx21]

i agree stongly with Txurce here. Perhaps we can differentiate between items on Thal's list (1. Terrain) which everyone agrees should definitely by in GEM, and items which might benefit from further discussion.

Sounds reasonable. My thoughts.

Strategic resources distributed by player territory. - I think reducing total amounts and increasing the tile spread of resources is uncontroversial (reducing shots of 6-8 to create several 2 or 3 shots). I have ambivalent but not objectionable thoughts about the regional distribution part for randomness.

I do think offshore oil and, essentially, coal on pangaea/continent maps, was too heavy versus land based distributions. Though if the idea here was to encourage types of naval warfare, that's fine.

Coal, Oil, and Aluminum revealed earlier. - Coal might be a little too early because of its tile bonuses. If copper gets the same iron/coal treatment, I concur we could move it back or perhaps move some of its bonuses back. Might also be because my last VEM game was as Polynesia though and I snapped up all those coal islands quickly as a result.

More valuable Great Person improvements. - Definitely a boost to several. GK does provide the Freedom tree bonuses to help with this, but VEM Freedom is different and probably better suited to "Freedom" anyway. With the GP changes in GK, Landmarks, CHs, and Manufactories don't merit much use. Holy Sites aren't very great either. CHs were powerful, particularly with the Treasury city. Academies got some boosts, but they're still way more powerful in VEM. Citadels I find myself using as a border pop to soak up a strategic resource quickly rather than to make into a useful city square. I wouldn't mind them being useful tiles however.

Early resources balanced in yield value. - I am ambivalent about this, but considering how powerful gold or gems were in an early Civ4 game for tech and expansion, I can see the merits. Varying the mint/granary/temple type bonuses might make the game a little less sterile without affecting balance in the early game too much.

10% rough terrain defense bonus, 20% flat defense penalty. - Some unit rebalancing is more important in my mind than the combat bonuses from terrain.

Most obvious to me is Pike-Knight/Sword, Spear-Sword, melee navy, tanks vs Infantry, and Mech Inf cost vs Infantry (upgrade is ridiculously cheap). Also several ancillary units like AA/AT, and possibly GG versus Rifles.

Camps require Archery instead of Trapping. - Makes some sense for game balance to have camps and mines be early luxuries; boats, plantations, and quarries later on the tech line. But I would concur that Archery is already a higher priority tech in GK, especially with an aggressive civ around.

More citystates on mainland for Continents-Plus and Pangaea-Plus maps. Completely useful. Much like the natural wonder changes for both placement and balance. I've had two vanilla games with Krakatoa literally out in the middle of nowhere and Sri Pada showed up on a one tile island that could only be used by another one tile isle 3 tiles away. Very irritating.

Villages returned to their proper place in the early game. - Not sure this was their "proper place" either. I don't see the point of having them show up with Pottery other than continuity with Civ4. An argument can be made that perhaps they should be available at "trade", on the second tech line, but not provide the VEM science bonus or provide less of the tech gold bonuses until guilds as in GK. This way, they might be around and you could use them in a gold poor region to get by but they wouldn't help that much until later in the game (again, as in Civ4).

Mine, lumbermill, and village tech bonuses spread out across a longer time. See above. Otherwise, excellent.

Terrain balance:
Rivers: +1 only when improved.
Coastlines: more atolls/isles.
Islands: more resources.
Deserts: 2 basic move cost, +1 on freshwater tiles, +1 on freshwater resources, Oasis value depends on surrounding desert.
Snow: +2 on snow hills.
Floodplains remain under newly-founded cities.
I don't mind islands being "super tiled" for balance, but it does get a little ridiculous at times, especially on archipelago maps. Had one 4 square line island with horses, cows, coal, and two pearls/fish tiles in the radius. That left just the city square and a couple of ocean tiles. I've seen others with three or four shots of bonuses around and no blanks at all.

I really liked the river and the desert-related changes. I don't think that Petra is OP from that kind of change so much as it seems fairly powerful already.

Is this also retaining the +1 food on coast tiles in addition to frequency of atolls?

 

[gunnergoz]

Not sure how the AI would handle needing resources to build wonders and would probably favor the human too much getting early wonders, its a cool idea though.

Yep, I worry about the AI end of it too, not sure that it is feasible, but decided to put it out there to see what the programmers here say about it.

 

[glider1]

On the topic of terrain, it's a good idea to start with this first.

I could be wrong!..... but I think there is a bug on Continents+ maps regarding selecting the world age in the custom setup. It basically seems to do very little on Continents+ unlike the Continents map, where the change is very noticeable. The ability to change the world age is fairly important in terms of fine tuning the difficulty of the game in terms of the AI's ability to capture cities on complex terrain.

I've switched to Continents maps more generally now, because it seems to me that G&K was developed around that map, with it's simpler terrain contours for the AI to handle. I'm reluctant to go back to Continents+ for that reason.

Cheers

 

[mitsho]

I'd like copper to be necessary to build spearmen and sailing frigates and ships of the line, but with no quantification of source material, i.e. one copper source could yield unlimited units.

That would mean a new system (no quantification), don't think that's a good idea. Why Frigates and SOTL btw., what's especially coppery there? The idea behind the building speed is to not have more strategic ressources, that changes the gameplay too much.

Stone (available from any source) should be necessary to build Stonehenge, Pyramid and Great Wall wonders, city walls and castles, on the same unlimited basis. If the stone is a local city resource, then there could be a 10% decrease in building time.

Marble (also available from any source, including importation) should be necessary to build many wonders such as Oracle, Great Library, Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel, etc. If the marble is a local city resource then the decreased building time bonus would apply too.

I am convinced however that returning marble/stone back to the civ4 system is a bad idea. First, you take a step away from vanilla G&K. Secondly, you alter the function of stone as a bonus ressource providing production in production-poor terrain. Thirdly, you make the wonders much more exclusive, but it should be the other way around. If wonders are easily reachable, you can use them for your strategy (beeline), if not, they tend to get built later (i.e. Macchu Picchu with its mountains). And fourthly, you add again a new mechanism, keep it simple.

I could be wrong!..... but I think there is a bug on Continents+ maps regarding selecting the world age in the custom setup. It basically seems to do very little on Continents+ unlike the Continents map, where the change is very noticeable. The ability to change the world age is fairly important in terms of fine tuning the difficulty of the game in terms of the AI's ability to capture cities on complex terrain.

I've switched to Continents maps more generally now, because it seems to me that G&K was developed around that map, with it's simpler terrain contours for the AI to handle. I'm reluctant to go back to Continents+ for that reason.

That's very well possible, although I haven't actually tested it yet... That the AI struggles with rough terrain and "chokepoints" is very unfortunate. I do think, the first one can solved...

 

[Tarquelne]

I favor the idea of resources (either luxury or strategic) giving the local city a bonus (% or otherwise), but only for certain types of construction, and perhaps even limited by era, directly or indirectly. (Copper, for example, might give a 10% bonus for the bronze-age units. Stone might give 5% toward pre-Ren. buildings.) Minor but colorful - helps differentiate cities more than significantly change balance.

Villages: What VEM did with Villages is one of my favorite features. I liked having a science-pushing improvement.

Hmm... in general I really liked all VEM's (and the proposed GEM) improvements.

Err... except for the strategic resource "guarantee." I'd like to see it softened or eliminated.

 

[gunnergoz]

That would mean a new system (no quantification), don't think that's a good idea. Why Frigates and SOTL btw., what's especially coppery there? (snip)

Copper plating of warships in the age of sail (late 18th century) made their speed increase considerably and gave them the ability to endure long voyages without aquatic wood borers eating their hulls. It was a game changer compared to the bare wooden hull vessels of earlier eras.

Regarding simplification of the game, that is not the direction I'd care to go. I'd rather add a bit of complication because that is what appeals to me personally. Of course, only if the AI can manage it.

In the end we'll have what Thal prefers anyway. But I like to toss in my favorite ideas in the hope that one or more might some day take root and flourish. I don't think about and play Civ V as methodically as some others might: I play it to enjoy it and don't spend a lot of time dissecting its internals.

 

[Jo the spearman]

I think horses should be visible on the map without having to research animal husbandry. It doesn't make a lot of sense the way it's working now. Even if horses are indeed a strategic resource. In the early game, they are mostly a valuable bonus resource.

 

[Thalassicus]

Anything can change. I posted the change list early to get feedback like this. Please keep in mind I haven't had much time to play the game recently... I got somewhat burned out, so your feedback is very important for this.

@mitsho
The order you posted seems logical. Don't forget the Barbarians component! I think I'll do that after the Armies one.

Is this also retaining the +1 food on coast tiles in addition to frequency of atolls?

I'm not sure, which is why I didn't list it. I want everyone to prioritize coastlines equally with river cities, and both higher than dry landlocked cities. Is this how you settle right now? If not, more Atolls might be enough to increase coastline importance.


@Txurce
How about a compromise? The base game provides 0-200% of the resources we need. VEM gives us 100%. What if we do 50-150%? It would be easy to add a random +/- to the algorithm, if that would accomplish the goal you're looking for.

Capturing cities in the ancient era is too exploitable against AIs. If that's possible, I'd like to change it. If Archery is too important for early city defense we could reduce it by making walls or basic city defense better. It should be spread around multiple avenues of defense instead of concentrated in one area.

If certain pantheon beliefs like Messenger of the Gods are too ICS-friendly, the best solution is to fix those beliefs, not change unrelated parts of the game. Which beliefs are you specifically concerned about?

I do not think villages contribute to ICS. Building a village on a hill means we don't have a mine, and many people consider production more valuable than gold/science in the early game. There's tradeoffs involved. The +1 on villages goes together with -1 per population in cities so overall research is somewhat lower. Late villages bother me because it makes improvement selection too simplistic: we only have one choice on most tiles for half the game! I do not like removing gold from the early game. Late villages are the main thing I disagree with about G&K... it simplifies the game too much. I prefer going in the other direction with more gold in the early game to increase our options. Firaxis did the same thing with specialists in vanilla last year (removed them from the early game) and I disliked that too. Why even have these elements in Civ if we don't use them for half the game?

What about Villages and Camps both on trapping, renamed to trade?


@mystikx21
Your assessment is accurate: the stone, atoll, and coal bonuses on islands are to encourage settlement and naval warfare. I'll lessen the bonuses somewhat now that navies are different.

As Txurce pointed out random resource distribution is fun for variety. Revealing resources earlier increases that randomness, and provides more complex city settlement decisions. Keep in mind coal only gives +1 in the mod, lower than the base game, so in the early game it's just a minor bonus resource.

 

[jk_bonn]

I think that getting VEM fully compatible for G&K should be first priority, any changes and suggestions can discussed/implemented when we have a stable version.

To change things before the "normal" VEM is ported to G&K will bring more bugs and confusion.

But this are only my 2 cents.


BTW. Thal take your time and also make some pause when doing this awesome job, we all like your mod and i am glad like a little child when VEM works for G&K.
But i think we all want that you also has fun at this and don't get a burnout at doing this mod.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not sure, which is why I didn't list it. I want everyone to prioritize coastlines equally with river cities, and both higher than dry landlocked cities. Is this how you set priorities right now? If not, Atolls might be enough to increase their importance and variety.

In the base GK game, I base my coastal decisions (at least early on) based on two factors:

1) Access to plentiful sea resources (fish, crab, etc).
2) Access to several hammer squares (hills especially).

Having the sea resources is why I want to build the coastal city. Having the hammers make it worth my time. Without hammers to develop the infrastructure, a coastal city can stagnate for a long time.

Late game the hammer requirement isn't as important, as gold can cover those needs for me.