Going for Gold: Resource / Monopoly 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 from resources, as well as the monopoly bonuses they can have.

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.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I voted no because ressources can still strongly unbalance the starting location (the culture ones, in particular).

Monopoly is ok, except the maybe the marble one. Marble tend to appear in 1 copy on some mapscript (I don't know why marble in particular, but...), so I would be in favor changing the monopoly bonus to something less significant (like Golden Age Length). We can buff the yields of the ressource or the improvement if it make the marble too wear.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Every monopoly with GAL feels really sad.
While I can have +10% gold/hammer/food/science/culture for the complete lenght of the game, sometimes already after I planted my second city, the time till I get a GA is so huge.
Getting +10% from something starting from turn 80, is simply much more than additional 2.5 turns of a golden age, which might come or not, maybe the first time after 150 turns or 200......
It might make sense for some few civs like korea, but its too special and have too weak influence in the first half of the game.
I even would prefer having +3 gold or +3 food on such tiles, than +25% GAL.

 

[grmagne]

Monopoly is ok, except the maybe the marble one. Marble tend to appear in 1 copy on some mapscript (I don't know why marble in particular, but...)

Marble affects World Wonder build speed so it wouldn't be fair to cluster it in one location.

Every monopoly with GAL feels really sad.
While I can have +10% gold/hammer/food/science/culture for the complete lenght of the game, sometimes already after I planted my second city, the time till I get a GA is so huge.
Getting +10% from something starting from turn 80, is simply much more than additional 2.5 turns of a golden age, which might come or not, maybe the first time after 150 turns or 200......

It might make sense for some few civs like korea, but its too special and have too weak influence in the first half of the game.

I even would prefer having +3 gold or +3 food on such tiles, than +25% GAL.

I’d agree with buffing the Golden Age length monopolies, but I wouldn’t take them away completely. It’s nice to have a variety. How about adding +3GA points to each tile in addition to the Golden Age length.

 

[ElliotS]

Marble affects World Wonder build speed so it wouldn't be fair to cluster it in one location.



I’d agree with buffing the Golden Age length monopolies, but I wouldn’t take them away completely. It’s nice to have a variety. How about adding +3GA points to each tile in addition to the Golden Age length.

Probably more like 2 GAPs, but yeah. That's what I suggested last time this was discussed.

An increased length without extra points is very dependent on what you're doing. Aztecs will love them, but Huns will not see a benefit for 95% of the game.

Adding a few extra points makes them a little better for ol' Attila and co.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I like the "add 2 GAP to GA duration resources" idea. Besides that, I feel some resources are inferior. It is however mostly fine with me, though there's one mineable resource that has bad yields and a Golden Age duration monopoly... I forgot which one it is, but it's not fun starting next to that one. I think Pearls or Corals (I forgot which) are probably the best resources in the game, but I'm not certain it's enough of a reason to nerf them.

 

[peterw1987]

Luxury balance consideration.
1.Yield bonus.
2.Tile improvement to connect
3.Monopoly bonus
4.Building that boost it (how early, is it priority building, and what is the boost yield).

GA length bonus is weak, but the luxuries itself is usually already good (gold,lapis,jade, and ivory). All give early culture which really impact how you snowball.
The saddest monopoly bonus IMO is happiness bonus. (especially after happiness problem is solved in latest patch).

While the best monopolies IMO is raw culture and faith.

I am a bit concerned about how early some luxuries booster building (caravansaries and stonework earliest), and how late the others (especially grocer and banking luxuries). How about moving some luxuries booster building to earlier era building?

I am quite sad when I get that tobacco,coffee, silver and gem start. Tea maybe exception, because of that raw 2 hammer + 2 hammer on improvement, and another raw hammer on monopolies. I am not sure why tea is related to production thou.

Can we make a polling about what luxuries usually is auto reroll?

 

[Mad Madigan]

We did a pretty extensive look at luxury yields and monopoly bonuses a few months ago and I was pretty content with the final results of that. Some luxuries are just straight-up not as good as other in terms of raw yields, but I feel they are balanced by coming into their full yield potential much earlier. and are highly sought after early in the game, so the luxuries focused on these yields have to be tempered in some way so as not to be overpowered. This is why some of the luxuries with better or easier to upgrade yields (Amber, Jade, Lapis, etc.) have weaker monopoly bonuses.

Maybe a few small tweaks here or there would be prudent, but I can't think of any luxuries that stand out as being overly powerful or weak.

 

[peterw1987]

Incense is strong. (Especially on flood plain, thou usually some of it spawned on flat desert to counterbalance).
Crab is overly weak. I will never see myself playing any civ, with any kind of strategy, with crab monopoly start.

 

[tu_79]

There's been changes regarding forests and jungles after the luxury balance thread was done. Right now, it is faster to make jungle plantations than forest plantations, and both come faster than before.
Not connected plantations are suffering from the Herbalist nerf too.

Also, quarries have been enhanced by castles, so marble and the precious gems that need quarries are a tiny bit better.

So, if any change is needed, I'd slightly nerf quarry luxuries and boost forest would be plantations.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

+25% GAL is for me too weak. And this 5% additional to 20% is wasted, cause in most cases you get 10 turns + 2 turns.
How would be +20% GAL and +1 GAP per luxury or +10% GAL and +2 GAP per luxury.
Or +1 GW/GA/GM points in capitol, increased every 2 era (like polish free policy).

The concerns about happiness sounds understandable, but with the next patch, there will come some changes in unhappiness calculations.
But my thoughts are flying around, how would be instead of +6 happines, you get +1 luxury rank. Weaker in early game but growing with game lenght.

 

[Txurce]

Crab is overly weak. I will never see myself playing any civ, with any kind of strategy, with crab monopoly start.

Carthage would shrug and go straight for Fishing Boats.

 

[pineappledan]

Ivory is bipolar, it's hilarious.

+25% GAP length is the worst monopoly bonus by a country mile.
Unlocking a powerful unit in ancient with a luxury is incredible!
The camp resource with no forest makes base Ivory tiles awful...
Then you get 3 with your building improvement! Wow!
But it's tied to circus, which you usually want to time to reset WLTKDs on a city, but now you're forced to prioritize them

 

[Stalker0]

Ivory is bipolar, it's hilarious.

+25% GAP length is the worst monopoly bonus by a country mile.
Unlocking a powerful unit in ancient with a luxury is incredible!
The camp resource with no forest makes base Ivory tiles awful...
Then you get 3 with your building improvement! Wow!
But it's tied to circus, which you usually want to time to reset WLTKDs on a city, but now you're forced to prioritize them

So it’s very distinct, but is it actually imbalanced?

 

[pineappledan]

It's as close to an incomparable as luxuries get.
Ivory has the worst monopoly bonus
No other luxury is buffed by circus, and you could go as far as to say that no other luxury is tied to an otherwise situational building
No other luxury grants a unique unit
It has arguably the worst base yields, but has the single most powerful building resource boost

I was more or less pointing out that, for a discussion of luxury/monopoly balance, you should probably ignore ivory.

One thing I will say, however, is that Having ivory be geographically locked, like amber, citrus etc. is a very odd choice for a luxury which you only need 1 of to get a global, unlimited supply of a unit. 1 civ can lock down all the ivory, and therefore has access to an additional unit by virtue of their starting location. I think it would make much more sense to have ivory be more globally distributed, like Marble or Coral. Consider if Marble was the same way, and 1 civ essentially had access to +20% wonder production that no one else could get.

 

[Mad Madigan]

I would second that it would make more sense for Ivory to be geographically distributed similar to Marble than the other luxuries, but otherwise I think the luxury is in a well-balanced state.

 

[Gazebo]

It's as close to an incomparable as luxuries get.
Ivory has the worst monopoly bonus
No other luxury is buffed by circus, and you could go as far as to say that no other luxury is tied to an otherwise situational building
No other luxury grants a unique unit
It has arguably the worst base yields, but has the single most powerful building resource boost

I was more or less pointing out that, for a discussion of luxury/monopoly balance, you should probably ignore ivory.

One thing I will say, however, is that Having ivory be geographically locked, like amber, citrus etc. is a very odd choice for a luxury which you only need 1 of to get a global, unlimited supply of a unit. 1 civ can lock down all the ivory, and therefore has access to an additional unit by virtue of their starting location. I think it would make much more sense to have ivory be more globally distributed, like Marble or Coral. Consider if Marble was the same way, and 1 civ essentially had access to +20% wonder production that no one else could get.

Marble deposits can be found around the world - elephants, not so much.

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Marble deposits can be found around the world - elephants, not so much.

G

In real life whales can be found on land too but not so in civ

 

[pineappledan]

Marble deposits can be found around the world - elephants, not so much.

While this is true, there are a few counterarguments worth considering:

Gameplay reasons:
- Ivory basically confers a civ a unique ability. Geographically restricting such a luxury can confer a major advantage over 1-2 civs in early game while denying it to the rest. This can be especially concerning for early warmongers.

Historical reasons:
- The war elephant unit which is conferred to civs with ivory is based off the North African bush elephant, an extinct subspecies from a place where elephants no longer exist. This opens up the possibility to consider ancient historical ranges, and extinct species of elephants, including the Syrian elephant, the Chinese elephant, and maybe even the European Straight-tusked elephant, etc.
- Since Mammoths are more closely related to Asian elephants (subtribe: Elephantina) than either is to the African elephant (genus: Loxodonta), you might also consider the historical range of mammoths as well.
- The current ranges for both Asian and African elephants are both vastly different from their historical ranges. African elephants ranged across the entire African continent, except for the Sahara, while Indian elephants used to range from Indonesia to Pakistan, basically everywhere south of the Himalayas.
- Considering historical species of true elephants, family: Elephantidae, you have a global range of animals that lived concurrently with humans on every continent except South America. If you consider the other historical source of ivory, elephants' cousins the mastodons, you have even more options.

All the species, genuses etc which I have listed, except for the straight-tusked elephant, lived at the same time as humans.

 

[Txurce]

All the species, genuses etc which I have listed, except for the straight-tusked elephant, lived at the same time as humans.

That's awfully vague. Were they readily available at the time that India and Carthage, for example, used them as weapons? And if so, why weren't they used that way in the locations you mention?