Gold balancing issues

[Koshling]

I was wondering about some of the buildings that provide + and +. It is possible to have the gold part obsolete before the building does. The represents real wealth in the ancient era but as you progress the wealth aspect should decrease. I am not sure about all of it an example may be the "Hunter's Camp", I can't remember when it goes obsolete/is replaced but perhaps the gold part could reduce at trade or something similar.

I am about to revamp all the herd buildings to have them evolve throughout the game. For example the deer herd will provide +1 , +1 and +1 to start with +2 at tool making and -3 at iron working to represent the usefulness of antlers as picks which are eventually replaced by metal picks. The food and gold will also change but not as dramatically.

So deer herd will wind up with negative hammers? Zero makes sense but why negative?

 

[RulerOfNothing]

Well, this is regarding v15 (I unfortunately have not found the time to play C2C recently), but I was getting ~400 espionage points in the Renaissance (sp?) simply from espionage buildings so it is not too implausible. I was also getting over 1000 gold per turn even at 100% science but I think that was because I somehow managed to avoid building a lot of units and instead built all the buildings that gave extra gold.

Edit: Koshling, I assume that the +2 is on top of the basic +1.

 

[climat]

I also never use espionage or cultural sliders.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I am about to revamp all the herd buildings to have them evolve throughout the game. For example the deer herd will provide +1 , +1 and +1 to start with +2 at tool making and -3 at iron working to represent the usefulness of antlers as picks which are eventually replaced by metal picks. The food and gold will also change but not as dramatically.

Please don't mess with your herd building for specifics like that. That's what the Bone Worker's Hut is for. Having things represented twice just creates more of a problem. Since the Herd Building provides a "Good (Carcass)" then the Bone Worker's Hut is enabled and thus is represented no matter if you have a Herd or a Hunter's Camp.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So deer herd will wind up with negative hammers? Zero makes sense but why negative?

Indeed +1(base) +2(tool making) -3(iron working) = 0

Please don't mess with your herd building for specifics like that. That's what the Bone Worker's Hut is for. Having things represented twice just creates more of a problem. Since the Herd Building provides a "Good (Carcass)" then the Bone Worker's Hut is enabled and thus is represented no matter if you have a Herd or a Hunter's Camp.

But Carcass is not antlers and there herd buildings are not unique enough. Nor is antler bone it is hair/fur, anyone who as worked in both can tell you that, and I have.

 

[JosEPh_II]

If most players don't use the Culture and Esp Sliders then That is the Gold problem, Plain and Simple.

If you're limiting Gold spending to only Research then the Culture and Esp Sliders have been made worthless. And therefore according to the consensus here are no longer needed so they could be removed from the Mod for no loss to game play or game design.

So lets start ripping big chunks out of the basic game. We don't use them, so they're not necessary. Does anyone else see the danger in this?

How else can I get ppl to think about this? Gold isn't the problem. Parts of the Game have been made useless for a many players. That's the problem. The problem is players don't need to spend Gold on Culture and Esp sliders. Gold is just a symptom of this Disease. C'mon guys think this thru.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If most players don't use the Culture and Esp Sliders then That is the Gold problem, Plain and Simple.

If you're limiting Gold spending to only Research then the Culture and Esp Sliders have been made worthless. And therefore according to the consensus here are no longer needed so they could be removed from the Mod for no loss to game play or game design.

So lets start ripping big chunks out of the basic game. We don't use them, so they're not necessary. Does anyone else see the danger in this?

How else can I get ppl to think about this? Gold isn't the problem. Parts of the Game have been made useless for a many players. That's the problem. The problem is players don't need to spend Gold on Culture and Esp sliders. Gold is just a symptom of this Disease. C'mon guys think this thru.

JosEPh

Just as the trade system is useless. There is no need to trade for stuff because you can get your own.

 

[EldrinFal]

You mean the sliders? What would a production one do?

On the gold thing two obserations (from my games):

• In prehistoric I typically destroy my subdued animals unless they can immediately build; or I'm about to found another city; or they are herd-producers which I always hold onto
• In industrial once you get corporations the gold picture chnages radically - that's when it starts getting hard to maintain 100% research

Yes, the sliders. A production one would increase/decrease in all the cities of your empire. don't have an overall tally I suppose, but it ranks pretty close to science in importance, so it could be a means to sway people off Science. More or less the sliders determine where your government is spending tax money, so it doesn't seem unrealistic if they allocated money into a nation's production.

BTW, I'm not saying if it's a good idea or not, it's just something that came to mind when talking about ways to compel people off 100% Science.

 

[Nevets_]

One way to make the sliders useful again would be to change all the + buildings to +. You would need to run at less than 100% because there would be no other way to make money to pay for maintenance/upgrades; (I know you guys don't like this idea, just saying this was how was balanced in vanilla). Unfortunately this would also let players speed up research by alot, since everyone who has tons extra now could instead convert it straight into . Maybe also increase science costs across the board?

I think a better solution is to make some stuff cost more. Change some +%Maintenance buildings into flat - ones. That way they suck up money in the mid game when it's plentiful, and don't cost an arm and a leg in the late game when you get corporations.

It would add another element of strategy to the game too, right now almost all buildings decisions boil down to 'will I ever build it here' and 'what to build first', since depending on your playstyle and what you are customizing the particular city for, you will always build all of the buildings you find 'useful' ASAP, and never build any of buildings you don't. If it's going to cost you -2 / turn for the graveyard, you might wait to build it until you need the and , rather as soon as you have some free hammers.

I also think unit costs could be adjusted, all infantry & siege units could cost +1, mounted units cost +2, armor & aircraft cost +4, etc. You could also add in - support cost modifiers to primitive civics like Banditry so in the early game players aren't destroyed by army support costs, but later on if they want a more advanced army they have to foot the bill.

 

[Hydromancerx]

But Carcass is not antlers and there herd buildings are not unique enough. Nor is antler bone it is hair/fur, anyone who as worked in both can tell you that, and I have.

Carcass is antlers, bone, meat, hide, guts, fat, etc. The later buildings turn "Good (Carcass)" into different parts such as Butchery converts it into "Good (Raw Meat)", the Bone Worker into "Good (Bone)" and the Hunter's Camp into "Good (Hide)".

If you wish I could make a specific Antler building however I think its mostly covered with "Good (Bone)". Just please don't change the herd buildings to have +/- .

The "Herd" and "Camp" buildings should only work as "fake" resources.

 

[Necratoid]

I'd like to point out that at no point in this thread have a single one of you made any mention of which leaders you are using. Concidering that the leaders are suppose to have a major effect on how a Civ runs it seems an important thing to talk about. How many of the people going on about this are using a leader with boosters? How many are using ones without boosters? This seems like a major point that is glossed over.

 

[EldrinFal]

I'd like to point out that at no point in this thread have a single one of you made any mention of which leaders you are using. Concidering that the leaders are suppose to have a major effect on how a Civ runs it seems an important thing to talk about. How many of the people going on about this are using a leader with boosters? How many are using ones without boosters? This seems like a major point that is glossed over.

I've never used a leader with + Typically I use Leaders with traits to increase Wonder production or that add + or +

 

[climat]

I'd like to point out that at no point in this thread have a single one of you made any mention of which leaders you are using. Concidering that the leaders are suppose to have a major effect on how a Civ runs it seems an important thing to talk about. How many of the people going on about this are using a leader with boosters? How many are using ones without boosters? This seems like a major point that is glossed over.

No one mentioned trait because it's non-factor anyway in this regard. I usually don't use Financial leaders.

 

[RulerOfNothing]

I'd like to point out that at no point in this thread have a single one of you made any mention of which leaders you are using. Concidering that the leaders are suppose to have a major effect on how a Civ runs it seems an important thing to talk about. How many of the people going on about this are using a leader with boosters? How many are using ones without boosters? This seems like a major point that is glossed over.

I can answer this. No people are using leaders with boosters because there are no leaders with boosters because there are no traits which boost (Financial gives a bonus to , which doesn't change anything if you are spending 100% on research).

 

[Hydromancerx]

So I just pushed on the SVN replacing Power Plant maintenance cost with -Gold. I also plan to add negative gold cost for other civic buildings such as hospitals, police stations, fire station, etc. This should help solve part of the over abundance of gold.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So I just pushed on the SVN replacing Power Plant maintenance cost with -Gold. I also plan to add negative gold cost for other civic buildings such as hospitals, police stations, fire station, etc. This should help solve part of the over abundance of gold.

Unfortunately for me, all those things happen when I run out of gold anyway. So for my playing style it makes things worse not better.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

(Red highlight) So you don't play with Cultural victory checked? You use mastery only?

Right now I'm playing with Mastery but usually I don't play with Cultural Victory anyway (I just don't like it).

(green highlight) How do you do this? Trading Embassy is only supposed to see into capitals.

I don't know. I've never used in my current game more than 0% of espionage. Right now it's 0% (-10/turn) and I can see inside let's say half of the cities I can see on the map. I have built 1 spy and it's wandering through enemy's territory but I haven't used it. And the cities I can see don't have my religion. I suppose the problem is that they have high negative values of espionage because probably they've built a lot of builidings that give esp penalties (bandit's hideout, assassin's den and so on), while I haven't. It' surprising anyway that it looks I'm stronger than my opponents in espionage while I'm almost the last in the score list and as for military strenght I have a 0.3 ratio with the strongest nation (never happened to me in every other game I've played with every other mod, just remember this is my first game with C2C). Playing on noble level as Catherine.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Unfortunately for me, all those things happen when I run out of gold anyway. So for my playing style it makes things worse not better.

1. What things happen anyways?

2. What is your play style?

3. We can always tweak or reverse my changes. However I would like to test them out and see if things get better or worse.

 

[Koshling]

If most players don't use the Culture and Esp Sliders then That is the Gold problem, Plain and Simple.

If you're limiting Gold spending to only Research then the Culture and Esp Sliders have been made worthless. And therefore according to the consensus here are no longer needed so they could be removed from the Mod for no loss to game play or game design.

So lets start ripping big chunks out of the basic game. We don't use them, so they're not necessary. Does anyone else see the danger in this?

How else can I get ppl to think about this? Gold isn't the problem. Parts of the Game have been made useless for a many players. That's the problem. The problem is players don't need to spend Gold on Culture and Esp sliders. Gold is just a symptom of this Disease. C'mon guys think this thru.

JosEPh

This is exactly correct. If players felt the need to use the culture and espionage sliders there wouldn't be an issue. So, as Joseph says, I think we should be looking for ways to make espionage generation via the slider (and culture likewise) more necessary. The obvious ways to do that are:
1) Reduce what you get in these categories from buildings; or
2) Increase the amount needed

Since the buildings are quantised in integer units, and many give +1, -1 option (1) is tricky without stripping them out of buildings entirely (which IMO is not the way to go). Therefore we need to raise espionage costs across the board (especially for passives like tech and city visibility), and raise the cultural thresholds needed for city expansion (especially the higher levels of it). That way we make the benefit from addign to these via the sliders much higher relatively and thus encourage their use.

 

[Nightguard]

This is exactly correct. If players felt the need to use the culture and espionage sliders there wouldn't be an issue. So, as Joseph says, I think we should be looking for ways to make espionage generation via the slider (and culture likewise) more necessary. The obvious ways to do that are:
1) Reduce what you get in these categories from buildings; or
2) Increase the amount needed

Since the buildings are quantised in integer units, and many give +1, -1 option (1) is tricky without stripping them out of buildings entirely (which IMO is not the way to go). Therefore we need to raise espionage costs across the board (especially for passives like tech and city visibility), and raise the cultural thresholds needed for city expansion (especially the higher levels of it). That way we make the benefit from addign to these via the sliders much higher relatively and thus encourage their use.

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.