Going for Gold: Pillage Bonuses

[Stalker0]

Going for Gold: These threads are designed to lock down elements of the mod for the gold release. In other words, if approved, no further changes are expected for this item.

This thread will debate the bonus (gold, health) gained from Pillaging

The question is: Is this item in a reasonable state of balance?

Important Notes:

1) There is no such thing as perfect balance.
2) The key is that each element is strong enough to have a niche, even if that niche is for very specific playstyles.
3) If you vote no in the poll, please comment on the elements you think are in an unreasonable state of balance.
4) If you vote yes, there is really no need to comment. The poll is the key note.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I vote no because I don't get it. Why do I sometimes get like 1 Gold from pillaging, and the other like 50, even if the tile is of the same type? Is it RNG? I'd prefer it to be a bit less harsh, then.

 

[ElliotS]

@Gazebo can we get more info on the mechanics?

 

[pineappledan]

Haha, an at-length discussion of the pillaging bonuses is pretty in-the-weeds. It would really help is someone could post the SQL values for all the pillaging bonuses. I don't think we can have a productive discussion about this topic otherwise

 

[Stalker0]

Haha, an at-length discussion of the pillaging bonuses is pretty in-the-weeds. It would really help is someone could post the SQL values for all the pillaging bonuses. I don't think we can have a productive discussion about this topic otherwise

I agree. I always thought it had something to do with the enemies treasury, which is why is fluctuates, but I don’t really know for certain

 

[Omen of Peace]

Do they scale with era?
If not, they probably should.

 

[Recursive]

I'd suggest changing the pillaging bonuses to something like this, it would be a lot more logical than the current system.

1) Base the Gold yield from pillaging on the output of the nearest city. A city producing 500 GPT would have more valuable farms, mines, etc. than a city producing 50 GPT. This makes sense - you wouldn't make as much money from plundering a frontier city compared to the capital.

2) Make the health obtained a range (e.g. from 10-50) depending on how large this city is compared to the global average. Larger cities have more supplies to use to heal oneself. Also, if you're a dominant superpower, your huge armies wouldn't get much sustenance from pillaging a weaker neighbor's supplies, which were there to cater to the smaller population of that city.

3) The value of the tile should also matter - pillaging a farm should yield less Gold than a silver mine, for example, but it should restore more health as it's full of food - maybe twice as much as the base health obtained.

4) Keep the amount earned from pillaging small so it's manageable for the defending player. Shouldn't be a big thing (except for the dreaded Songhai). There should also still be a RNG element to the Gold, at least, to make things a bit less predictable.

5) I don't think there should be an era scaler, I think it should just tie in to the city yields.

The idea is that if you're attacking a 1 population city that only works one tile, it's already weak, it doesn't have much to offer and you wouldn't gain much by pillaging it - while if your powerful neighbor leaves his high-yield capital poorly defended, invasions would be fairly lucrative at his expense.

Tiles count for war score so I think they should be worth the pillage - if the bonuses for pillaging aren't worth it, it's better to just leave the lands unpillaged so you don't have to rebuild after you capture the city.

All of this is just my opinion - use my ideas however you want, or not at all.

 

[tu_79]

I'd suggest changing the pillaging bonuses to something like this, it would be a lot more logical than the current system.

1) Base the Gold yield from pillaging on the output of the nearest city. A city producing 500 GPT would have more valuable farms, mines, etc. than a city producing 50 GPT. This makes sense - you wouldn't make as much money from plundering a frontier city compared to the capital.

2) Make the health obtained a range (e.g. from 10-50) depending on how large this city is compared to the global average. Larger cities have more supplies to use to heal oneself. Also, if you're a dominant superpower, your huge armies wouldn't get much sustenance from pillaging a weaker neighbor's supplies, which were there to cater to the smaller population of that city.

3) The value of the tile should also matter - pillaging a farm should yield less Gold than a silver mine, for example, but it should restore more health as it's full of food - maybe twice as much as the base health obtained.

4) Keep the amount earned from pillaging small so it's manageable for the defending player. Shouldn't be a big thing (except for the dreaded Songhai). There should also still be a RNG element to the Gold, at least, to make things a bit less predictable.

5) I don't think there should be an era scaler, I think it should just tie in to the city yields.

The idea is that if you're attacking a 1 population city that only works one tile, it's already weak, it doesn't have much to offer and you wouldn't gain much by pillaging it - while if your powerful neighbor leaves his high-yield capital poorly defended, invasions would be fairly lucrative at his expense.

Tiles count for war score so I think they should be worth the pillage - if the bonuses for pillaging aren't worth it, it's better to just leave the lands unpillaged so you don't have to rebuild after you capture the city.

All of this is just my opinion - use my ideas however you want, or not at all.

I disagree with the change to recovered health. Even if it is more realistic, combat should not be over-complicated.

As for the gold, it seems reasonable. Try to make it simple too. Like using a factor that is a percentage of the city that owns the tile gold production. Like half the gold production. Then, lumbermill and farms yield that value on pillaging, mines and uniques yield double, villages and towns, triple.
So when a city is producing 100 gold per turn, pillaging a farm would yield 50 gold and pillaging a town 150.
If that's too high, it can be reduced, but beware that in the early game, the gold might be negligible. A secondary ancient city with a market has what? 3 gold per turn? Pillaging a farm would grant just 1 gold, if any.

Another side effect is that it would be a no brainer pillaging any city before capturing it, as it will be very worthy to repair the pillaged tiles.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Interesting ideas.
I like the idea of connecting the value of plundering with the value of the city. This make sense. But as tu_79 said, in the early stages of the game, you would get around nothing. And would maybe need a new, difficult code.

How would be the more easy solution:
Plundering an improvement delivers the related yields to the next city. Farms give food, mines gives hammer, villages and towns give gold, UI gives a mix of yields. Not much, maybe 2, scaling with era.

I think more relevant is the reduction of the health regeneration, sometimes you can run through enemy land and stay alive all the time while plundering.

 

[pineappledan]

Jesus... why does pillaging need to be a mini game unto itself? And if it WERE to become an actual mini game, full of arcane bull-malarkey, why not put some actual choices into the mechanics?

It gives gold, it gives HP. Attaching the pillage rewards to city yields cause weird gameplay issues (what to do with a tile workable by 2 cities, but being worked by neither? Tying gold from pillage would reward you for not pillaging TRs to/from that city...???). And that's besides the complete overhaul in coding this would require.

Just tighten up the gold pillaging values on specific tiles, no one has even posted an appraisal of the current system. Until someone posts a proper assessment of the pillaging values, all of this talk is just nonsense

People pillage now because it gives hp and gold, so pillaging is an unambiguous good. If you change the yields to faith, science, etc, it doesn’t present any meaningful decisions to the player.
On the other hand, if enemy units healed +5 hp (10hp total) per turn on improved tiles, or could pillage them for an instant 25hp, THAT is a meaningful choice.
If pillaging a luxury/strategic resource gave you control of that resource for X turns, but DAMAGED the unit that pillaged the tile and consumed all movement, THAT is a meaningful choice.

I’m not suggesting these ideas should be implemented, but at least that would not just be changing a mechanic for the mere sake of it. None of the proposed mechanics changes in this thread offer any meaningful improvement over the system that already exists.

 

[Gazebo]

Pretty sure pillage value is just a database define for each improvement type. You can see it in the sql database.

G

 

[Recursive]

Well, it was just an idea. I'm not insistent about the health recovered.

My only real objection with the current system is that pillaging 4 Gold from a farm in the Modern Era is hardly a reward at all, and seems unrealistic if the nearest city produces 500 GPT. Basing it off of city yields seemed a better way of accurately calculating the value. As it's still small, it doesn't incentivize deliberately reducing your own yields.

If trade routes are an issue, just don't count the trade routes. You already can pillage those separately.

Different yields from pillaging - e.g. mines giving Production, Academies giving Science, is an interesting concept as well. But it might be more trouble than it's worth at this stage.

 

[Gazebo]

Well, it was just an idea. I'm not insistent about the health recovered.

My only real objection with the current system is that pillaging 4 Gold from a farm in the Modern Era is hardly a reward at all, and seems unrealistic if the nearest city produces 500 GPT. Basing it off of city yields seemed a better way of accurately calculating the value. As it's still small, it doesn't incentivize deliberately reducing your own yields.

If trade routes are an issue, just don't count the trade routes. You already can pillage those separately.

Different yields from pillaging - e.g. mines giving Production, Academies giving Science, is an interesting concept as well. But it might be more trouble than it's worth at this stage.

Complexity for the sake of complexity isn't ideal. Really we can just tweak the PillageGold amount and add era scaling. Here's the current amounts:

Improvements and values:

"IMPROVEMENT_OFFSHORE_PLATFORM"
"IMPROVEMENT_KUNA"
"IMPROVEMENT_CHATEAU"
"IMPROVEMENT_MINE"
"IMPROVEMENT_QUARRY"
"IMPROVEMENT_TRADING_POST"
"IMPROVEMENT_WELL"
"IMPROVEMENT_LANDMARK"
"IMPROVEMENT_ACADEMY"
"IMPROVEMENT_CUSTOMS_HOUSE"
"IMPROVEMENT_MANUFACTORY"
"IMPROVEMENT_HOLY_SITE"
"IMPROVEMENT_FEITORIA"
"IMPROVEMENT_ENCAMPMENT_SHOSHONE"
"IMPROVEMENT_CUSTOMS_HOUSE_VENICE"
"IMPROVEMENT_EKI"
"IMPROVEMENT_FARM"
"IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM"
"IMPROVEMENT_POLDER"
"IMPROVEMENT_LUMBERMILL"
"IMPROVEMENT_PASTURE"
"IMPROVEMENT_FISHING_BOATS"
"IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION"
"IMPROVEMENT_CAMP"
"IMPROVEMENT_MOAI"
"IMPROVEMENT_BRAZILWOOD_CAMP"
"IMPROVEMENT_KASBAH"
"IMPROVEMENT_LUMBERMILL_JUNGLE"
"IMPROVEMENT_CITY_RUINS"
"IMPROVEMENT_BARBARIAN_CAMP"
"IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT"
"IMPROVEMENT_FORT"
"IMPROVEMENT_CITADEL"
"IMPROVEMENT_ARCHAEOLOGICAL_DIG"
"IMPROVEMENT_JFD_MACHU_PICCHU"
"IMPROVEMENT_EMBASSY"

"50"
"40"
"30"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"20"
"18"
"18"
"18"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"10"
"0"
"0"
"0"
"0"
"0"
"0"
"0"
"0"

 

[Recursive]

Fair point. There's definitely an RNG factor in there somewhere, though, I swear I've received values out of that range.

The only problem I could see with era scaling is that if these values were tweaked and someone with a significant tech lead were to plunder improvements, it could get devastating for the defender, which is why I suggested city yields.

An alternative could be basing it off of the defender's era, rather than the attacker's era.

 

[pineappledan]

Human readable format, assuming all values are in the same order from what G posted:

IMPROVEMENT_OFFSHORE_PLATFORM--50
IMPROVEMENT_KUNA--40
IMPROVEMENT_CHATEAU--30
IMPROVEMENT_MINE--20
IMPROVEMENT_QUARRY--20
IMPROVEMENT_TRADING_POST--20
IMPROVEMENT_WELL--20
IMPROVEMENT_LANDMARK--20
IMPROVEMENT_ACADEMY--20
IMPROVEMENT_CUSTOMS_HOUSE--20
IMPROVEMENT_MANUFACTORY--20
IMPROVEMENT_HOLY_SITE--20
IMPROVEMENT_FEITORIA--20
IMPROVEMENT_ENCAMPMENT_SHOSHONE--20
IMPROVEMENT_CUSTOMS_HOUSE_VENICE--20
IMPROVEMENT_EKI--20
IMPROVEMENT_FARM--18
IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM--18
IMPROVEMENT_POLDER--18
IMPROVEMENT_LUMBERMILL--10
IMPROVEMENT_PASTURE--10
IMPROVEMENT_FISHING_BOATS--10
IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION--10
IMPROVEMENT_CAMP--10
IMPROVEMENT_MOAI--10
IMPROVEMENT_BRAZILWOOD_CAMP--10
IMPROVEMENT_KASBAH--10
IMPROVEMENT_LUMBERMILL_JUNGLE--10
IMPROVEMENT_CITY_RUINS--0
IMPROVEMENT_BARBARIAN_CAMP--0
IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT--0
IMPROVEMENT_FORT--0
IMPROVEMENT_CITADEL--0
IMPROVEMENT_ARCHAEOLOGICAL_DIG--0
IMPROVEMENT_JFD_MACHU_PICCHU--0
IMPROVEMENT_EMBASSY--0

My impressions:

• Landmarks and Great people tiles, Including Colonia, should be 40g. It makes no sense that Towns are worth so little in comparison to Chateaus
• Kasbah, Feitoria, Polder and Brazilwood seem low, they should be 30, same as Chateau. Kuna seems bizarrely high. Maybe it stays at 40, maybe it drops to 30?
• Having 18g pillage is not a material difference from 20g. I think setting terrace farm and regular farm down to 10, same as pasture, makes more sense, and bump polder up, as previously mentioned.
• Whatever the value ends up being, pasture and Eki should probably have the same pillage value, since that's essentially what Eki is. I'd say setting both down to 10 would be my preference.
• Not getting hammered with 30dmg every turn is it's own reward, but citadels could stand to give some gold as well, IMO. Maybe 20g? You probably had to fight tooth and nail to pillage it, may as well make it worth their while.

 

[Stalker0]

The values definitely aren’t the end of the story. I have seen different values than these, there must be some rng component

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

There definitely is, I just got 1 Gold for pillaging a plantation on Epic.

 

[Gazebo]

Sorry, yes, there is RNG, my point above wasn't to state that those are flat values, but rather those are the RNG seeds.

iPillageGold = GC.getGame().getSmallFakeRandNum(pkImprovement->GetPillageGold(), *plot());
iPillageGold += (getPillageChange() * iPillageGold) / 100;

G

 

[Moi Magnus]

Sorry, yes, there is RNG, my point above wasn't to state that those are flat values, but rather those are the RNG seeds.

iPillageGold = GC.getGame().getSmallFakeRandNum(pkImprovement->GetPillageGold(), *plot());
iPillageGold += (getPillageChange() * iPillageGold) / 100;

G

So the gold value of pillage is a random number between 1 and the gold value of the improvement? (So in average half of the flat value)

 

[Mad Madigan]

Maybe this is too much of a change, but it seems like this is a perfect place to inject an Era scalar in addition to making a few small tweaks to the base pillage value for each improvement type (I agree with pineappledan's edits). Getting 1-20 for a pillage in the Ancient Era is barely anything, so having that value upgrade with Era makes sense. The only question I have is: should the Era scalar be that of the pillaged or the pillager? I lean towards the former, but is that an easy variable to access for the calculation?