Gold balancing issues

Another option, instead of raising costs, would be to make these two 'currencies' more valuable by increasing what can be done with them. Personally, I feel that the 'fixed borders' aspect of a number of civics actually devalues culture. (Admittedly, I turn culture victory options off, but that's more because I don't know how well scaled culture victory conditions are to the current abundance of culture buildings in the game.) I wish there was a way to completely turn off the fixed borders option, so that culture once again holds value in setting the borders between your nation and a neighboring nation. Additionally, I like that there are a couple of buildings that have culture level requirements in the game already. This is another thing I could definitely see expanded on to help restore some value to culture.

Ultimately, while I can see where a lot of people are coming from in saying that gold is too abundant, I agree with Joseph that the gold issue is only a symptom of the issue, not the cause. I think that, with as many buildings producing actual culture, espionage, and gold as there are now, instead of them being percentage modifiers, hammers have actually become overpowered. Say I want to increase espionage production to launch some sabotage missions against a neighbor. I could up the slider, but I could just as easily build come crucifixion crosses or town watches. Or say I need a little culture in one city to expand borders? I could up the culture slider, sure, but the dance hut is cheap and much more targeted than the slider. We've come to a point in this mod where hammers are able to be used as just about anything the player might want.

It's still on my list to revisit fixed borders and make them less draconian, or make them somehow vulnerable in indirect ways to culture pressure. This is easy to do by using the REV mechanics so that culture pressure in a fixed border situation (i.e. - one where ou are holding tiles only through fixed borders that are NOT really of your culture) to make revolutions in local cities more likely.

However, I still don't have a great idea for a non-REV mechanic so it works for everyone (including those not using REV). How would people feel about this as a suggestion:

  1. Fixed borders still means you can't lose tiles DIRECTLY to culture
  2. However, each tile you hold that is NOT dominated by your own culture (i.e. - ones you hold only via fixed borders) have a gold cost per turn, which increases the less your culture is present there (as a %)
  3. Some way to 'cede territory' is added so that the fixed border civ can elect to give up some tiles it holds to relieve the financial burden
  4. (possibly) (some of) the gold cost is actually TRANSFERRED to the cultural owner(s) (in proportion to cultural ownership) rather than just lost as an expense. This represents the population sending home money to their (cultural) relatives or something.

This doesn't invoke any REV mechanics, chews up gold as a side effect, and gives a benefit to cultural pressure as well as a cost to resisting it via fixed borders. The only issue I see is having the AI figure out when to cede territory (and possibly also figuring out a good UI to enable humans to cede territory)
 
Some ideas to make culture more valuable:
  • Make more buildings require a certain culture level
  • Add more culture levels to reach
  • Sum up the total amount of culture produced, then make some things depending on that total. E.g. you could have cultural perks that you could select one from whenever you reach a threshold in that summed up culture. (More effort to implement but also quite interesting)
 
That is an interesting idea AIAndy. Possibly many of the WW and NW could require a total amount of Culture Points to build as well as requiring a culture level in the city one wants it in, if that's possible to do. That could mean that the leading scientific nation isn't able to hog all the wonders solely on merit of getting there first and gives increasing benefit for going after some culture heavy techs.

Cheers
 
The key will be making those aspects of greater value compared to science. Traditionally, I only moved my Culture slider when I needed the extra :) from buildings that provide it for Culture slider setting, and espionage only late in the game when either I've researched everything, or my science rate is so fast I don't NEED 100% to get techs every turn or two.

The science race is incredibly important in Civ because first to discover X tech can gain a Free GP, a Free Tech, Found a Religion / Free Prophet, or gain access to newer/better buildings, and first crack at some Wonders.

Whatever is changed with Culture and Espionage will have to be equally compelling.
 
The key will be making those aspects of greater value compared to science.

This isn't so easy I think... since the entire game is based on technological advance and discoveries, why should I prefer culture or espionage when I'm ahead of other nations with techs? I'll probably be stronger anyway...
I think we're somehow missing the point; even with vanilla civ, culture and espionage aren't used so much, I think; at least I didn't use them so much. I use culture only when I need to keep my cities happy and I've never used espionage more than 5%.
The problem that I was thinking about when I've started this thread is that until now (from vanilla civ to other mods like RoM or AND) I didn't have to use esp or culture sliders, now I don't need to use science slider either because gold is overpowered!!
 
I'm glad that finally I'm getting ppl to think this thru instead of just reacting to my statements/arguments. (yes I've been argumentative in the past and I admit to being stubborn :p )

I wish I had a good answer to this problem. I feel that the Old vanilla methods of Culture and Esp slider usage should be re-looked at and then compared to what we have now. That we can take the "old" way and make it more efficient and better not more cluttered.

Am I saying less buildings and such? No not really, just a more straight forward approach. The "More is Better" is actually only better if it's more efficient and can be implemented in a clear understandable method.

We've tried to revitalize Culture but we're still using really unproven New Methods instead of looking at the Core CIV IV/BtS ways and making them stronger. Fixed Borders, Realistic Culture Spread are all really relatively new methods game wise. Now that they have been used and reworked I believe we are finding out that their premise was flawed in terms of Core game mechanics. Instead of enhancing Culture and Espionage they actually weakened them. I'm actually in favor of them being removed (Please!, don't throw stones now, I know no one likes to have less choices, I'm that way too, but if it's destroying a core game feature/design then something has to give).

I truly believe that this Mod has reached a critical stage in it's development. And refinement and retooling are the most pressing issues right now. Not adding more abstractions and distractions. The tree is in need of pruning to produce better and more abundant fruit.

I personally would love to see tile flipping from Culture come back to it's roots, Culture Units reinstated (entertainers, artists, and the Culture Bomb). Only this time working on the AI to be Better at utilizing them (they did use them in the past but not as often as the player.) And those that abused them came and started declaring to the forum that they were eXpliots and Cheats, so the Modders killed them off. Those units were not the problem. The players that overused them and then cried foul was the real problem. Helping the AI to be more adept at their usage was the real solution but it was discarded.

If the AI used a Great artist (Culture bomb) on it's border city to claim some of your border tiles the player would have a fit. But when you did it to the AI it was Oh So sweet! Until you realized that the AI wasn't as good as you at building and using those units. Then it became an eXploit and a cheat. That was wrong thinking. Instead of helping the AI use them better we killed them off instead to assuage our egos. And our willingness to cheat and not be held accountable for our actions. We weakened our foe by taking away some of his options/tools. Lets give him back his options and tools so that we Have to guard against him taking our tiles. Not "let's remove those tools" and make artificial barriers (fixed borders, realistic culture, city limits, etc.). I firmly believe that if this is done we Will have a better Mod and in the long run a bigger enjoyment of this Mod.

JosEPh :)

Edit: 45* got his in before me and I have to say that if he didn't need to use the Culture and Esp sliders all the way back the vanilla Civ IV then his style vs mine are radically opposed to each other and a glaring problem is exposed and it ain't OP Gold.
 
@JosEPh_II

I still think Culture and Espionage have their uses and should not be taken out. However making them stronger or re-purpose them to be useful is a must. I personally like AIAndy's idea of making some buildings require a minimum culture level.

In fact it would be interesting to apply that idea to other factors such as Science, Espionage, Health, Happiness, Gold, Food, Production, Commerce. Making things unlocked at different levels of things would the game that much more interesting.

I truly believe that this Mod has reached a critical stage in it's development. And refinement and retooling are the most pressing issues right now. Not adding more abstractions and distractions. The tree is in need of pruning to produce better and more abundant fruit.

This I disagree with. I have a bunch more techs I want to add. This is on reason why there are still gaps between the techs on the tech tree. For someone who said you a agree with "more is more" you sure want to take out a lot of stuff.
 
I must be plying a different game. If I don't have espionage at 5-10% from the time I meet my neighbours and at about 20% by the middle ages then the AI spies steal all my tech advantage and start ruining my cities. This is with a spy stationed in all my cities. Although as C2C has progressed they have been less doing this less often.

This has not been the case since the -:espionage: buildings were introduced.
 
@JosEPh_II
I personally like AIAndy's idea of making some buildings require a minimum culture level.

In fact it would be interesting to apply that idea to other factors such as Science, Espionage, Health, Happiness, Gold, Food, Production, Commerce. Making things unlocked at different levels of things would the game that much more interesting.

That's it!! It's really a great idea which would give meaning to culture and espionage vs gold.
@JosEPh_II: it's true that Civ has always had a lot of gameplay possibility, I'd be curious to play MP with someone else who has a totally different gamestyle from mine. I only played MP a couple of years ago with RoM with another guy and it was great fun; now I'm playing MP with my wife but obviously we're in the same team, it wouldn't be a good idea to wage war against her in Civ too... :lol: Anyone successfully played a MP game with C2C? (I know, I'm going OT now)
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;10918333 said:
This isn't so easy I think... since the entire game is based on technological advance and discoveries, why should I prefer culture or espionage when I'm ahead of other nations with techs? I'll probably be stronger anyway...
I think we're somehow missing the point; even with vanilla civ, culture and espionage aren't used so much, I think; at least I didn't use them so much. I use culture only when I need to keep my cities happy and I've never used espionage more than 5%.
The problem that I was thinking about when I've started this thread is that until now (from vanilla civ to other mods like RoM or AND) I didn't have to use esp or culture sliders, now I don't need to use science slider either because gold is overpowered!!

That was my point. In order to get players to redirect funding elsewhere, they must have a compelling reason to do so. Whatever that ends up being. It's why I brought up a :hammers: slider suggestion since production is right up there, and if your production comes to a crawl at 0%, you're darn well going to raise that slider! :lol:

But that still doesn't improve the value of Espionage or Culture. More buildings that require a minimum culture or espionage level should be interesting, as long as the player knows about that requirement. And the AI knows as well. They will need to be significant to outweigh science though. But balanced so that the AI doesn't sit on 50% science, while the player STILL uses 100% science, and gets such a technological advantage that he just goes to war and wipes the AI out with superior units. :badcomp:
 
@JosEPh_II

I still Culture and Espionage have their uses and should not be taken out. However making them stronger or re-purpose them to be useful is a must. I personally like AIAndy's idea of making some buildings require a minimum culture level.

In fact it would be interesting to apply that idea to other factors such as Science, Espionage, Health, Happiness, Gold, Food, Production, Commerce. Making things unlocked at different levels of things would the game that much more interesting.
The slider has one important aspect about it: it is global. And using a global slider to get a local effect that it is a good tradeoff only at few cities rarely works.

So lets look at the local (city) value vs. the global value of these mechanics:

Science:
Global: Permanent must have, certain loss if you fall too far behind in the tech race.
Local: None.
Science is so important already that it does not really need a local effect but its global effect make it perfect for the slider.

Culture:
Global: None.
Local: Culture spread from city. Tile or even city flip possible.
The local effect makes it an inefficient tradeoff for the slider. Needs a global effect to make it a viable tradeoff for science. Local effect could be buffed as well.

Espionage:
Global: Situational depending on enemy and plan.
Local: None.
I think this does not need fundamental changes. Just some balance passes to make sure that spy activities have a noticable effect and both espionage and counter espionage are viable (and/or necessary) strategies.
Maybe a city could build better spies after having produced a certain amount of espionage.
 
The slider has one important aspect about it: it is global. And using a global slider to get a local effect that it is a good tradeoff only at few cities rarely works.

So lets look at the local (city) value vs. the global value of these mechanics:

Science:
Global: Permanent must have, certain loss if you fall too far behind in the tech race.
Local: None.
Science is so important already that it does not really need a local effect but its global effect make it perfect for the slider.

Culture:
Global: None.
Local: Culture spread from city. Tile or even city flip possible.
The local effect makes it an inefficient tradeoff for the slider. Needs a global effect to make it a viable tradeoff for science. Local effect could be buffed as well.

Espionage:
Global: Situational depending on enemy and plan.
Local: None.
I think this does not need fundamental changes. Just some balance passes to make sure that spy activities have a noticable effect and both espionage and counter espionage are viable (and/or necessary) strategies.
Maybe a city could build better spies after having produced a certain amount of espionage.

Random Thought: What if Espionage slider % = +% bonus to all Spy actions & Defense from Spy actions? Either 1 for 1, or 2 for 1. i.e. 10% slider = 10% or 5% bonus.
 
Random Thought: What if Espionage slider % = +% bonus to all Spy actions & Defense from Spy actions? Either 1 for 1, or 2 for 1. i.e. 10% slider = 10% or 5% bonus.

No. If itwork this way you'd just wait til all your spies were in place, bump the slider to 100% for one turn and do all the actions.
 
No, I mean the culture slider would actually changed commerce into GPP, instead of (or in addition too) culture points.
 
I have to admit, AIAndy may have come up with a really good idea in the 'local + national culture required for wonders' option. Let's be honest, many of the wonders in the game (not all, but many) are representations of places of artistic interest as much as they are of interest scientifically or mechanically, and many of these arose in places with a well established culture around them. Constructions like the Cistine Chapel and the Arch de Triumph didn't happen in a random country village; instead, they happened in the cultural hearts of their nations. Granted, a lot of capitals cities in Civ tend to be cultural strongholds as well, but a combination of cultural requirements and the existing system of limits on wonders per city could help offset the whole 'race to the wonder tech' that often occurs currently.

As far as the espionage slider, I agree that the bonus to spy actions concept is quite easy to abuse, but having an espionage spending to spy action defense mechanic is an option that might be worth looking into. Another possibility would be to tie espionage into the 'tech diffusion' mechanic, such that higher espionage spending increases the rate at which a given nation acquires research trickle, representing the gradual accumulation of technology through more passive surveilance? Granted, I'm pretty sure that the AI will not have any idea that either of these are happening, which gets back to Joseph's statement that the AI needs to be made able to use any options you try to incorporate.
 
I have to admit, AIAndy may have come up with a really good idea in the 'local + national culture required for wonders' option. Let's be honest, many of the wonders in the game (not all, but many) are representations of places of artistic interest as much as they are of interest scientifically or mechanically, and many of these arose in places with a well established culture around them. Constructions like the Cistine Chapel and the Arch de Triumph didn't happen in a random country village; instead, they happened in the cultural hearts of their nations. Granted, a lot of capitals cities in Civ tend to be cultural strongholds as well, but a combination of cultural requirements and the existing system of limits on wonders per city could help offset the whole 'race to the wonder tech' that often occurs currently.

As far as the espionage slider, I agree that the bonus to spy actions concept is quite easy to abuse, but having an espionage spending to spy action defense mechanic is an option that might be worth looking into. Another possibility would be to tie espionage into the 'tech diffusion' mechanic, such that higher espionage spending increases the rate at which a given nation acquires research trickle, representing the gradual accumulation of technology through more passive surveilance? Granted, I'm pretty sure that the AI will not have any idea that either of these are happening, which gets back to Joseph's statement that the AI needs to be made able to use any options you try to incorporate.

Espionage could also reduce outbound tech diffusion
 
Regarding EldrinFal's idea, what if the having the espionage bonus was contingent on having the slider there for a while (so you would gain the bonus from 10% spending each turn until you reached the maximum or something)?
 
Top Bottom