Getting Started

[Questdog]

I'm assuming you don't have the most recent map pack? The continents+ mapscript puts the CSs on islands off the coast. Here they cause zero threat when at war, but the barbs are free to attack civs.

I play a modified Perfect World 3 mapscript (more land, less desert, fewer hills and mountains).

That script makes the most amazing maps to play, in my opinion.

I usually play the English and I have edited their start bias to not be exclusive to the coast. Adds more variety to my games and London isn't a coastal city, anyway.....

 

[ERLoft]

Just been playing a game with Balance Combined and am wondering if this is normal...

I've just entered the Modern Era, with several civs not far behind, and a large amount of the civs just haven't expanded very much. Monty is sitting on 3 cities, so is Gandhi, and in fact the largest civ aside from myself, Napoleon, has only 8 cities. Almost all of them have fair to good plots of land within easy settling distance, but they don't seem inclined to expand any further. Seems far different than the last time I was playing back in February...

Mods: (All latest versions)

Balance Combined
City State Diplomacy
Not Another City States Mod
No XP Cap from Barbs
Tectonics

Game Setup:
Large Tectonics Map
12 civs, 24 city states
Epic Speed
King Difficulty

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Txurce]

It currently takes 6 full policy trees in this mod (5 in vanilla). That is impossible for a large empire, and takes a very long time for a small empire.

I was playing a Persia Conquest game on Emperor with v7.2.1 when you posted this. I was at about turn 250, and headed for likely failure due to having fallen far behind on Science, following Thal's advice and not building a NC early (!). In fact, I had given up with two capitals in the bag, two toughies left on my continent , and massive Siam and France on solo continents of their own. I was playing only to see how high I could promote a Chariot Archer (3 shock, 3 drill, March, Blitz... and ultimately Modern Armor).

I then decided to switch over to a Culture win. At the time I had nine cities, but SOW gold had me getting a new SP every 5 turns or so. And what trees had I started? Liberty, Honor, Autocracy and Commerce, naturally. No Tradition or Freedom, and not even Piety, because I never have serious happiness problems warmongering. In other words, none of the Big 3 Culture trees.

Freedom was off-limits due to Autocracy, so I aimed for Order fifth and Piety last. Remember, I was still potentially warmongering, now building bombers and researching nukes. My first problem was that Siam built the UN and was gunning for it. I staved him off in one vote, but was going to be nipped in the next. I then allied with enough CS to temporarily forestall a Siamese UN win, and declared war. In the process I denounced him, forgetting that we were Friends. This led to my neighbors Arabia and England - each with armies twice my own - to declare war on me a few turns later.

I quickly rushed Military Bases in my two English border cities, and had them pay off when one was immediately nuked. Luckily for me, this was the only nuclear hit I took. Over the next 80 or so turns I cranked out nukes, thinning out the English army and major cities, while playing defense on the main front, and liberating Songhai cities and CS in my rear. Siam never got close to a UN win again, and I had no problem holding off the invaders. What made it hairy is that England needed only one more SS part to win. I made peace with Arabia, England and Polynesia just before winning on turn 331 in 1912 with a score of 2342.

By the end of the game I had 12 cities (second to Siam, but I could have had 15), 113 happiness, the second most land, and still only the fifth biggest military. The game was a blast, of course, but again I want to point out how much happiness and gold* I had. Combine this with the very high culture, and you may see the concern I have about the cumulative benefits of the warmongering policies.

* My gold would have wound up at about 15K had I not twice invested in winning over angry allies. I learned that a few thousand made them go to blue, but no amount of additional gold made them allies. This may be a bug.

 

[Questdog]

Just been playing a game with Balance Combined and am wondering if this is normal...

Yes, this is normal. Some Civilizations have no desire to dominate the world, but are content to sit in their small kingdom and develop their refined culture and maybe try to get everyone to like them.

 

[Txurce]

Just been playing a game with Balance Combined and am wondering if this is normal...

I've just entered the Modern Era, with several civs not far behind, and a large amount of the civs just haven't expanded very much. Monty is sitting on 3 cities, so is Gandhi, and in fact the largest civ aside from myself, Napoleon, has only 8 cities. Almost all of them have fair to good plots of land within easy settling distance, but they don't seem inclined to expand any further. Seems far different than the last time I was playing back in February...

Mods: (All latest versions)

Balance Combined
City State Diplomacy
Not Another City States Mod
No XP Cap from Barbs
Tectonics

Game Setup:
Large Tectonics Map
12 civs, 24 city states
Epic Speed
King Difficulty

Thanks for any feedback!

WWGD only slows initial settlement - the AI would have caught up by now. What you're experiencing is due to vanilla patches. But as you probably know, the AI have a late-stage expansion surge where even tall empires colonize like crazy.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Questdog
Removing CSs from the game is a somewhat significant departure from vanilla, and not something I can balance for.

1) Buffering you from Barbarians
2) Making it way to easy to keep your happy face
3) Making strategic resources basically a free commodity
4) Sometimes, by being close to you, it keeps an AI opponent from settling a city near the spot, thus giving you an easier path to expanding your empire and allowing you to build a city elsewhere, saving the city state location as a future city site.

1. If each individual battle is the same while only the quantity is increased, it gives us a larger supply of easy non-war experience.
2. In the midgame it costs 10/turn per 5 to get a luxury from a citystate. This is higher than the 8:5 rate of luxuries from major civs. A city settled on that site with a colosseum will have a net 3, and no net cost if there's at least one tile worked that provides gold. This is much better than the citystate or major civ options.
3. If we settle a city on the site we have unlimited access to the strategic resource without any payments.

We do get alternative benefits to settling a city, but we also have side benefits from sending gold to a citystate. I suspect the two balance out, which means the three first points indicate the game is easier by removing citystates.

The last point is valid, but I'm uncertain it's worth removing a major game mechanic just to avoid an AI issue.

substitute an extra AI civ for every 8 Cs's that were originally scheduled

This increases the quantity of strategic resources on the map, which makes the game easier for a warmonger.


@ERLoft
The AI highly prioritizes settling cities with a 3-tile spacing. They drop down cities at other distances in rare circumstances for particularly valuable resource sites. I think if there's no super-sites far away, and no good city sites in a 3-tile range, only 2 or 4 tile, the AI just freezes and doesn't expand at all. This is a vanilla-game problem we can't solve because it's coded in the c++ we don't have access to.


@Txurce
Persia is not good for a conquest victory. I tried playing this way but it just doesn't work. To fully utilize Persia it's necessary to focus on specialists, national wonders, and golden age boosters, which are different building and tech paths than a normal military path. This is why I removed the buffs from Immortals and returned the goldenage duration to normal.

 

[Txurce]

@Txurce
Persia is not good for a conquest victory. I tried playing this way but it just doesn't work. To fully utilize Persia it's necessary to focus on specialists, national wonders, and golden age boosters, which are different building and tech paths than a normal military path. This is why I removed the buffs from Immortals and returned the goldenage duration to normal.

Given your extensive warmongering play and knowledge of the game, I'm sure you're right... but why does it seem like it would work?

SOW = gold = happiness = more GA's = more gold, production and +1 movement = (conquest!)

 

[Questdog]

@Questdog
Removing CSs from the game is a somewhat significant departure from vanilla, and not something I can balance for.

I realize that; you would have to come up with a whole 'nuther policy tree to boot.
But I find playing without them significantly tougher than playing with them. (It may be only that I've learned how to exploit the CS's better than I've learned other game mechanics. But it sure seems to make happy faces and strategic resources irrelevant, since I can get more than I'd ever need without much effort.)

This increases the quantity of strategic resources on the map, which makes the game easier for a warmonger.

Possibly, but having two more Civs to conquer may balance that.

Edit: And it has been my experience, as I've said, that I find strategic resources harder to come by even though there are more in the world. And if I'm having fewer and there actually are more, that should mean that the AI is getting a net gain.

 

[Thalassicus]

In the end Questdog, what matters most is we find the way that's most fun for each of us to play.

Given your extensive warmongering play and knowledge of the game, I'm sure you're right... but why does it seem like it would work?

SOW = gold = happiness = more GA's = more gold, production and +1 movement = (conquest!)

On paper the movement bonuses, production, gold, and Immortal's healing are all super for a warmonger. However, to get the first 3 we need to emphasize:

• High happiness.
• National wonders.
• Culture buildings (for Great Artist golden ages).
• Can't spam manufactories.

Time spent making NWs and culture buildings is time lost making units and production/gold buildings... and not having manufactories significantly slows training in our military city. I only have limited experience with games as Persia, but it seems an ideal strategy might be Tradition tree -> 4 temples from Aristocracy -> National Epic -> Monarchy's GE on Chichen Itza -> Artist spam, probably aiming for a Science victory since we're not using the artists on landmarks. Warfare helps a science victory, but with the restrictions listed above it's the opposite of a conquest path.

 

[Ahriman]

Given your extensive warmongering play and knowledge of the game, I'm sure you're right... but why does it seem like it would work?

SOW = gold = happiness = more GA's = more gold, production and +1 movement = (conquest!)

To me, the issue is: conquest = less happiness = less chance to use the Persian ability.

I will say though, 3 move artillery are super-awesome for conquest.

 

[Ahriman]

I then decided to switch over to a Culture win. At the time I had nine cities, but SOW gold had me getting a new SP every 5 turns or so. And what trees had I started? Liberty, Honor, Autocracy and Commerce, naturally. No Tradition or Freedom, and not even Piety, because I never have serious happiness problems warmongering. In other words, none of the Big 3 Culture trees.

I wonder then if the issues is really that the Liberty policy which reduces the policy cost increase from more cities is too strong. I would suggest cutting back this benefit. It should not really be possible to get a culture win with a large empire.

 

[Zaldron]

I wonder then if the issues is really that the Liberty policy which reduces the policy cost increase from more cities is too strong. I would suggest cutting back this benefit. It should not really be possible to get a culture win with a large empire.

I think you just hit the crux of the issue. I consider that policy a no-brainer even with a small 3-4 city empire when going for a cultural win so it probably needs to be scaled back a bit (or retooled into a non-cultural-victory policy).

 

[Txurce]

To me, the issue is: conquest = less happiness = less chance to use the Persian ability.

Are you aware of the happiness levels I've hit in my last two warmongering games? One finished at 107, the other at 113.

 

[Txurce]

I wonder then if the issues is really that the Liberty policy which reduces the policy cost increase from more cities is too strong. I would suggest cutting back this benefit. It should not really be possible to get a culture win with a large empire.

I think I could have done it much faster without that Liberty policy, had I focused on a cultural victory sooner. To me the issue is not Liberty - it's SOW +Autocracy+Commerce. That equals crazy happiness and culture. You may not have seen all my posts on this subject... I've been a bit of a broken record about it.

 

[Busdriver]

I thought it was a good policy back when it was 33%. At 66% though, it's just too good. If you have a 4 city empire, 3 of which were built after taking the policy, then policy costs (compared to an empire that does not take this policy) are reduced by ~16% with a 33% reduction, and ~32% with a 66% reduction, which is already better than Free Speech. And as you add more and more cities this will approach 33% and 66% respectively. I'd say 33% is good without being overpowered, but 66% is just too much.

 

[Ahriman]

Are you aware of the happiness levels I've hit in my last two warmongering games? One finished at 107, the other at 113.

What was the source of this? Were you razing cities?

To me the issue is not Liberty - it's SOW +Autocracy+Commerce. That equals crazy happiness and culture. You may not have seen all my posts on this subject... I've been a bit of a broken record about it.

I think I commented before, agreeing that Honor tree policies should not be giving culture. I think we agree here.

If you have a 4 city empire, 3 of which were built after taking the policy

Does it matter when you built the cities?
I thought it didn't matter, and that the cost of a new policy was a function of the number of cities you have and the number of policies you have purchased (not the same as the number of policies you have, because of free polices).
So the Liberty policy just reduces the impact that the number of cities has on the cost of a new policy.
But maybe I'm wrong?

 

[Txurce]

I thought it was a good policy back when it was 33%. At 66% though, it's just too good. If you have a 4 city empire, 3 of which were built after taking the policy, then policy costs (compared to an empire that does not take this policy) are reduced by ~16% with a 33% reduction, and ~32% with a 66% reduction, which is already better than Free Speech. And as you add more and more cities this will approach 33% and 66% respectively. I'd say 33% is good without being overpowered, but 66% is just too much.

This would certainly nerf the Liberty tree, and make it less appealing for cultural victories (although I would still probably take it). The only caveat would be if Thal explains that the math there works differently.

 

[Txurce]

1. What was the source of this? Were you razing cities?

3. Does it matter when you built the cities?

1. No razing - occupying as soon as resistance ended (not that this affects it much). In one game I had 5 or 6 cities, in the other 12. I did it by being rich enough to keep my luxuries, build some theaters, and miscellaneous happiness policies, as well as those in Piety. When I finished with 113, the closest AI had 28.

2. I read the rule as meaning any cities built after that policy is acquired.

 

[Thalassicus]

I thought it was a good policy back when it was 33%. At 66% though, it's just too good. If you have a 4 city empire, 3 of which were built after taking the policy, then policy costs (compared to an empire that does not take this policy) are reduced by ~16% with a 33% reduction, and ~32% with a 66% reduction, which is already better than Free Speech. And as you add more and more cities this will approach 33% and 66% respectively. I'd say 33% is good without being overpowered, but 66% is just too much.

The game does not work like this, mainly because modifiers in Civ are additive. (The ingame culture tooltip is misleading.) The change to Representation varies from a 5% rate difference per city with 5 cities, to a 1% difference per city with 20 cities. In other words the effect of Representation is basically independent of the size of the empire. I explain details of how policies work in the policy cost increase per city thread.

 

[Busdriver]

I realize it's additive. With 4 cities, a policy costs 1.9 times as much as with 1 city since each city adds 30%. With the policy, each city adds 10%, so a policy would cost 1.3 times as much as a 1 city empire. .6/1.9=.315, so this is a 31.5% reduction. At 33% it a policy would cost 1.6 times as much, and .3/1.9=.158. If we built n cities (not including the capital), and the policy reduced the amount added per city by x, then the total reduction would be:
1-(1+.3*n*(1-x))/(1+.3*n) = .3*n*x/(1+.3*n)
which goes to x as n becomes large enough. Unless this is not how the policy works, in which case please explain it to me.