General economy of CPB - gold/production

[Bernd-das-Brot]

The gold/production balance is off. (If I understood it right the low gold costs for buying stuff in the actual version are a bug, not an intended change.)


Reasons for this:
- When playing with CSD you get CS with production (through diplomats) not gold, removing one of the main features of gold.
- Nearly every gold-%modifier was removed, but there are still plenty around for production. So every point of production is even more powerful in comparison to gold. (Liberty/Windmill +15%/10% buildings, Might +25% units, smithy/harbour +15% units, stable +15% for horses, railroad +25%, diplomats +100% at best,...)

So gold is only needed for maintenance, upgrading units and perhaps most important as part of the happiness system (povertyreduction).
Production should be the best way to get stuff in general. But with the actual gold costs it rarely makes sense to buy anything with gold. The flexibility of gold is a big advantage, but not enough for 4-5 times the prize of it.


My suggestions:

- Reduce gold costs
Buildings should cost 1,5-2x their production costs in gold.
Military units and defense buildings should cost 2,5-3x their production costs in gold. They are more expensive because they are often needed "now"! This should have a prize. (Getting a unit or walls now can make the difference between losing a city or not. Getting your workshop working now or in 5 turns does not make such a big difference.)
The factor should be always the same independent from era or the exact building/unit. Only military/non-military should matter (see above).

- Tone down the prod modifiers and/or add some for gold (Policies, markets+, caravansery).
e.g. Forge only for cities with enhanced iron/copper or remove modifier completely.

 

[Funak]

The gold/production balance is off. (If I understood it right the low gold costs for buying stuff in the actual version are a bug, not an intended change.)


Reasons for this:
- When playing with CSD you get CS with production (through diplomats) not gold, removing one of the main features of gold.
- Nearly every gold-%modifier was removed, but there are still plenty around for production. So every point of production is even more powerful in comparison to gold. (Liberty/Windmill +15%/10% buildings, Might +25% units, smithy/harbour +15% units, stable +15% for horses, railroad +25%, diplomats +100% at best,...)

So gold is only needed for maintenance, upgrading units and perhaps most important as part of the happiness system (povertyreduction).
Production should be the best way to get stuff in general. But with the actual gold costs it rarely makes sense to buy anything with gold. The flexibility of gold is a big advantage, but not enough for 4-5 times the prize of it.


My suggestions:

- Reduce gold costs
Buildings should cost 1,5-2x their production costs in gold.
Military units and defense buildings should cost 2,5-3x their production costs in gold. They are more expensive because they are often needed "now"! This should have a prize. (Getting a unit or walls now can make the difference between losing a city or not. Getting your workshop working now or in 5 turns does not make such a big difference.)
The factor should be always the same independent from era or the exact building/unit. Only military/non-military should matter (see above).

- Tone down the prod modifiers and/or add some for gold (Policies, markets+, caravansery).
e.g. Forge only for cities with enhanced iron/copper or remove modifier completely.

The productionbonuses are pretty specific tbh, they could be compared to the reduced buyprice in Industry aswell as the big ben wonder and those affect both units and buildings so they are even more powerful.

While I really enjoyed the bug where you could get a 80gold warrior I did not enjoy that you could get a 200gold settler.

I don't think percentual bonuses actually help at all, inflation is horrible as it is anyways, you can pretty much buy the world when you get to the midgame.

The only real solution I see is letting us get more production in mid/late game so we can raise the hammercosts on everything and by that way keep the hammerinflation better in line with the goldinflation. But in all honesty I don't really know, I'll just keep voicing my opinion and see if Gazebo manages to sort it out.

 

[joosegoose25]

Are these proposed changes for the CBP with CSD, or without CSD? I don't use CSD and gold is especially nonexistant, I don't really like it especially since in the midgame you get buildings that can cost over 1000 gold. My last game I had a decent midgame economy (40-60 gpt), but that was almost entirely from selling strategic resources for large amounts. Once AIs were no longer willing to buy my resources my economy stalled at ~10 gpt.

(As an aside, the only reason I don't use CSD is because I'm not a fan of city-states in general--never have been, only reason I keep them on is to not ruin the balance of the game. As wonderful as Gazebo's work on it seems to be, I don't wish to interact with city-states any more than I have to. At least not now--maybe when I'm more familiar with the CBP).

I like these proposed changes. I also really love the idea of making additional, optional changes to economy for those who do not use CSD. There are already files that need to be overwritten when not using CSD, a couple gameplay files to add to that would be nice. I understand this would be (very) low priority, but it could be nice for users who either do not wish to use CSD or don't wish to use it immediately as the CBP changes to the base game are quite numerous already.

 

[WileyNg]

The gold/production balance is off. (If I understood it right the low gold costs for buying stuff in the actual version are a bug, not an intended change.)


Reasons for this:
- When playing with CSD you get CS with production (through diplomats) not gold, removing one of the main features of gold.
- Nearly every gold-%modifier was removed, but there are still plenty around for production. So every point of production is even more powerful in comparison to gold. (Liberty/Windmill +15%/10% buildings, Might +25% units, smithy/harbour +15% units, stable +15% for horses, railroad +25%, diplomats +100% at best,...)

So gold is only needed for maintenance, upgrading units and perhaps most important as part of the happiness system (povertyreduction).
Production should be the best way to get stuff in general. But with the actual gold costs it rarely makes sense to buy anything with gold. The flexibility of gold is a big advantage, but not enough for 4-5 times the prize of it.


My suggestions:

- Reduce gold costs
Buildings should cost 1,5-2x their production costs in gold.
Military units and defense buildings should cost 2,5-3x their production costs in gold. They are more expensive because they are often needed "now"! This should have a prize. (Getting a unit or walls now can make the difference between losing a city or not. Getting your workshop working now or in 5 turns does not make such a big difference.)
The factor should be always the same independent from era or the exact building/unit. Only military/non-military should matter (see above).

- Tone down the prod modifiers and/or add some for gold (Policies, markets+, caravansery).
e.g. Forge only for cities with enhanced iron/copper or remove modifier completely.

Just throwing out ideas here.
Maybe gold cost can stay as it is. But it can be reduced by a number of buildings, policies, ideologies and religions so as to add more flavour in respect of the diversity of gameplay.

 

[MayNilad Man]

Also just spit balling.

Would it be possible to tie maintenance to population? For every x number of citizens, you have -y gold?

 

[Funak]

Also just spit balling.

Would it be possible to tie maintenance to population? For every x number of citizens, you have -y gold?

All this would do is force an increase in the gold/citizen from banks/markets/policies and so on. Generally keeping a service open is cheaper the more people live in the city.

 

[Gazebo]

Right now, the 'hurry cost mod' of all buildings (in the building's xml) is based on what it was in vanilla. I intend to go through this and modify it so that it scales a little more naturally. We'll see if this helps.
G

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

The productionbonuses are pretty specific tbh, they could be compared to the reduced buyprice in Industry aswell as the big ben wonder and those affect both units and buildings so they are even more powerful.

While I really enjoyed the bug where you could get a 80gold warrior I did not enjoy that you could get a 200gold settler.

Not really. Railroad is for everything, the unit/buildings-boni are each for nearly half of all buildable stuff (everything except WW). Industry needs a full tree to get some effect and big ben is a WW and so limited to one civ. No comparison. Would be hard to compete for gold even with a better conversion ratio.

I agree that cheap settlers are a bad idea. Perhaps make them non-buyable, to always stop growth in their homecity.

I don't think percentual bonuses actually help at all, inflation is horrible as it is anyways, you can pretty much buy the world when you get to the midgame.

The only real solution I see is letting us get more production in mid/late game so we can raise the hammercosts on everything and by that way keep the hammerinflation better in line with the goldinflation. But in all honesty I don't really know, I'll just keep voicing my opinion and see if Gazebo manages to sort it out.

I think the main reasons for (an unwanted high) yield inflation through the course of the game are these:

1. Cities grow too fast, because there is too much free food from buildings/policies/I-TRs and so on flying around. And there are a lot of powerful food-modifiers! (On immortal the AIs have a lot of 30+ cities in renaissance and nothing under 20 pop!)

2. Too many GP leading too many GP-tile improvements (manufactories), leading to hammer inflation. (I really dislike 1 unit-per turn cities, they make mid and late game wars very time consuming and repetitive attrition wars. Maybe historic, but not very fun. Same goes for cities producing WWs every 3 turns.)

3. There are bonus yields for completing buildings, spending GPs, growing cities, expanding borders, and so on. Perhaps all in all too much. Hard to really say.

 

[WileyNg]

Not really. Railroad is for everything, the unit/buildings-boni are each for nearly half of all buildable stuff (everything except WW). Industry needs a full tree to get some effect and big ben is a WW and so limited to one civ. No comparison. Would be hard to compete for gold even with a better conversion ratio.

I agree that cheap settlers are a bad idea. Perhaps make them non-buyable, to always stop growth in their homecity.





I think the main reasons for (an unwanted high) yield inflation through the course of the game are these:

1. Cities grow too fast, because there is too much free food from buildings/policies/I-TRs and so on flying around. And there are a lot of powerful food-modifiers! (On immortal the AIs have a lot of 30+ cities in renaissance and nothing under 20 pop!)

2. Too many GP leading too many GP-tile improvements (manufactories), leading to hammer inflation. (I really dislike 1 unit-per turn cities, they make mid and late game wars very time consuming and repetitive attrition wars. Maybe historic, but not very fun. Same goes for cities producing WWs every 3 turns.)

3. There are bonus yields for completing buildings, spending GPs, growing cities, expanding borders, and so on. Perhaps all in all too much. Hard to really say.

What speed are you playing on?
Because I usually play on epic speed and I find that the production rate now is optimal. even with a lot of great person tiles.

 

[Funak]

What speed are you playing on?
Because I usually play on epic speed and I find that the production rate now is optimal. even with a lot of great person tiles.

I play standard and I totally agree with the exception of some earlygame buildings, in newly founded cities as well as workers early on. The later issue however would require workerupgrades to be fixable.

 

[Gazebo]

I've adjusted growth, gold, and hammer costs in the latest version. Let me know what you think, and if you feel it has pushed the mod in the correct direction.

G

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

I sadly didn't have the time to really play the new version (15th). So I only looked on the numbers from the very early buildings/units.

At least the (very early) hammer:gold-ratio seems still strange to me. Monument is still 5+. Shrine nearly 5. Scout and Warrior nearly 4 and not the same modificator. Worker around 3.

Why are buildings more expansive than units? Buying units and def. buildings is often more pressing and decisive. So why this way?

Ratio of around 5 is still unbalanced. Getting gold is not easier than getting production. So I don't really understand these numbers. I think everything over 3:1 for buildings makes buying buildings nearly always a very bad deal. 2:1 may be too powerful, 2.5:1 would definitely worth a try. 3:1 still seems conservative to me.

And why not a constant ratio for buildings/units/def. buildings? Would be more comfortable If I would always knew what a unit would cost to buy, if I knew its production cost.


You changed so many things radically from vanilla. Why are you so hesistant(?) to make a more radical change here, even when people wrote how fun they sought the "bugged" version. What unwanted side effects do you fear? Or is it more kind of personal preference (which would be absolutely ok, by all means its your mod).

 

[Gazebo]

You changed so many things radically from vanilla. Why are you so hesistant(?) to make a more radical change here, even when people wrote how fun they sought the "bugged" version. What unwanted side effects do you fear? Or is it more kind of personal preference (which would be absolutely ok, by all means its your mod).

Hesitant is the wrong word – I'm open to changing it, however finding 'the sweet spot' is very much a game of slowly fiddling with knobs, as every game of civ has the potential to be radically different. For example, over a hundred AI test games the numbers have the potential to change each game, sometimes wildly. I'm slowly creeping the gold ratio down with each iteration until we find something a bit more balanced.

G

 

[Funak]

You changed so many things radically from vanilla. Why are you so hesistant(?) to make a more radical change here, even when people wrote how fun they sought the "bugged" version. What unwanted side effects do you fear? Or is it more kind of personal preference (which would be absolutely ok, by all means its your mod).

Funny thing is that the reason I liked the "bugged" verson was because of the cheaper units. I Personally like buildings being more expensive than units.

Hesitant is the wrong word – I'm open to changing it, however finding 'the sweet spot' is very much a game of slowly fiddling with knobs, as every game of civ has the potential to be radically different. For example, over a hundred AI test games the numbers have the potential to change each game, sometimes wildly. I'm slowly creeping the gold ratio down with each iteration until we find something a bit more balanced.

No idea if this is even possible but having buildings(and units) starting off cheaper maybe 2-3 times production and getting more expensive every era is probably the best way to handle the goldinflation. The main issue with this is that my goldincome varies extremely between game. sometimes I'm sitting around 100 gpt in medieval and sometimes I'm sitting with a negative gpt in industrial.

 

[WileyNg]

Gold is pretty much useless if you always don't have enough to buy any unit or buildings.
Normally in the early to mid game I have to wait for 30 turns until I can buy something.

Maintaining a stable and robust economy is quite difficult in CPP until the late game. You have so many to spend on, like the purchase of tiles, some E&D decisions, units and buildings. And I often spend my money on caravans but these trade routes are often plundered in case of wars and barbarians and I ended up suffering a loss in gold.

Personally I agree with Bernddasbot that buildings now are too expensive. Making it cheaper will simply add more favour because the players won't have to sit there and wait for another 10 turns to accumulate enough cash.

 

[Delekhan]

It looks like buying buildings with gold currently costs about 6x (600%) of its production cost.

In my opinion, this is way, way too high.

In CEP the purchase cost of buildings was 2x its production costs. For defense buildings and units, the purchase cost was 3x. I believe that was probably a bit too cheap.

I think 2.5x - 3x for buildings and 3.5 - 4x for defense buildings and units would work well and keep the game challenging. As it stands I almost never rush buy anything with gold as it's currently designed in CBP. And since I don't bother rush buying (it's such a bad value right now), I hardly ever use merchant specialists either.

Is there a line in the LUA code I can change to customize the gold purchase multiplier for my own games?

 

[Gazebo]

It looks like buying buildings with gold currently costs about 6x (600%) of its production cost.

In my opinion, this is way, way too high.

In CEP the purchase cost of buildings was 2x its production costs. For defense buildings and units, the purchase cost was 3x. I believe that was probably a bit too cheap.

I think 2.5x - 3x for buildings and 3.5 - 4x for defense buildings and units would work well and keep the game challenging. As it stands I almost never rush buy anything with gold as it's currently designed in CBP. And since I don't bother rush buying (it's such a bad value right now), I hardly ever use merchant specialists either.

Is there a line in the LUA code I can change to customize the gold purchase multiplier for my own games?

I don't think it is that high throughout the game, but then again I haven't played many full games as of late.

The gold related values are in the CoreDefines.xml in the CBP.

G

 

[joosegoose25]

I found a consequence of the lowered purchasing costs--unit upgrades are now very expensive in comparison.

For example, upgrading a Comp Bow to a Crossbow costs 190 gold, whereas buying a completely new Crossbow costs 210. Upgrading units definitely shouldn't be the most cost-efficient thing there is, but it shouldn't be nearly this bad imo. Right now it almost feels pointless to do.

 

[Delekhan]

Yup, it looks like gold purchase costs went from 6x to 2x - 2.5x in one update.

Unless a unit is at least level 3 I'm disbanding/rebuilding units rather than upgrading them. The cost differential makes it a no-brainer, especially if I'm at peace.

So in short, now gold purchase costs seem too low

Also, the customs house (Town) seems way too weak. At just 2 food, it's no better than a farm in that regard.

Never said I was easy to please...

 

[Funak]

Yup, it looks like gold purchase costs went from 6x to 2x - 2.5x in one update.

Unless a unit is at least level 3 I'm disbanding/rebuilding units rather than upgrading them. The cost differential makes it a no-brainer, especially if I'm at peace.

So in short, now gold purchase costs seem too low

Keep in mind that purchase costs increase with number of cities while upgradecosts stay the same.

Also, the customs house (Town) seems way too weak. At just 2 food, it's no better than a farm in that regard.

Never said I was easy to please...

It does give a few points of gold aswell, but I kinda agree. It should probably start at 3 food atleast.
Funny thing is how it has actually been that way for a while now but I never noticed it because of how late merchant-specialists unlocked