Gold inflation
- Thread starter balparmak
- Start date
Took a quick look at my gold in a current game
Carthage, Tradition -> Artistry
4 Cities, Renaissance Era
I have 368 gold per turn.
340 produced by cities
16 from city-states
38 produced by trade routes (I am Carthage, but of my 6 trade routes, 4 are internal)
302 from deals with other civilizations
Here I'm working 5 total villages, 2 towns, and have 0 gold from religion. I'm in a golden age and I've themed the Globe Theater (10 gold), otherwise I can't think of any unusual gold sources, 4 markets but only 1 bank at the moment, 1 customs house, 0 caravansaries.
A look at sources that seem unusually large:
Unhappy AI will give me 30+ gold for a luxury. This is where most of 'deals with other civilizations' comes from.
Chanceries are producing 7 gold each (this is counted in city yields, not 'from city states')
If people want to trim gold, I'd start with chanceries
Carthage, Tradition -> Artistry
4 Cities, Renaissance Era
I have 368 gold per turn.
340 produced by cities
16 from city-states
38 produced by trade routes (I am Carthage, but of my 6 trade routes, 4 are internal)
302 from deals with other civilizations
Here I'm working 5 total villages, 2 towns, and have 0 gold from religion. I'm in a golden age and I've themed the Globe Theater (10 gold), otherwise I can't think of any unusual gold sources, 4 markets but only 1 bank at the moment, 1 customs house, 0 caravansaries.
A look at sources that seem unusually large:
Unhappy AI will give me 30+ gold for a luxury. This is where most of 'deals with other civilizations' comes from.
Chanceries are producing 7 gold each (this is counted in city yields, not 'from city states')
If people want to trim gold, I'd start with chanceries
Given how ready AI is to spend heaping sums on WLTKDs, it seems like gold generation is definitely to blame. The AI seems to just end up with so much (whether that's from general GPT or difficulty bonuses) that it doesn't mind spending a ton on resources, even quite early in the game.
As for possible solutions, I think increasing costs is a good direction. More maintenance for buildings, especially niche ones that work much better if you build synergistic buildings (something like how Arena (I think?) gives production to several other buildings). Or maybe making Investing scale with the number of investments in the city? Sort of like how Wonders cost more the more you've built, the gold cost for investing multiple buildings in a city would go up. Maybe following a similar un-scaling by era.
Another thought, giving ways to convert gold to other resources. Maybe gold is this sort of liquid resource, and you can funnel it into various yields depending on your needs. I don't know how that mechanism would work though, like you can pick a Process that runs in parallel with your normal operations that converts 25% of GPT in the city to Food/Science/Culture/Faith (Production already being covered by investment)? Or maybe it's framed as a mutually-exclusive building that does the same thing, and you build a few over the eras. Oh wait... have I just suggested making a building that provides a number of yields in exchange for a number of gold, which is just the definition of the buildings we currently have? XD
As for possible solutions, I think increasing costs is a good direction. More maintenance for buildings, especially niche ones that work much better if you build synergistic buildings (something like how Arena (I think?) gives production to several other buildings). Or maybe making Investing scale with the number of investments in the city? Sort of like how Wonders cost more the more you've built, the gold cost for investing multiple buildings in a city would go up. Maybe following a similar un-scaling by era.
Another thought, giving ways to convert gold to other resources. Maybe gold is this sort of liquid resource, and you can funnel it into various yields depending on your needs. I don't know how that mechanism would work though, like you can pick a Process that runs in parallel with your normal operations that converts 25% of GPT in the city to Food/Science/Culture/Faith (Production already being covered by investment)? Or maybe it's framed as a mutually-exclusive building that does the same thing, and you build a few over the eras. Oh wait... have I just suggested making a building that provides a number of yields in exchange for a number of gold, which is just the definition of the buildings we currently have? XD
Hinin
Agnostophile
One idea I had when working on my tweaks was to double road maintenance costs (it is too easy nowadays to spam roads, which can give major military advantages in defense) and increase the maintenance costs of all non-wonder buildings by 1, except for gold generating buildings : this would mean mindlessly constructing all buildings would be detrimental to your economy, and so you'd have to think about city specialization a lot more.
This, plus the unit supply reduction from balparak that I'm currently integrating in the tweaks and an increase to all military units' maintenance costs, make it so that finding gold sources is crucial, for costs are all around higher. I augmented the base gold of the palace by 5 to compensate the harsher starting point, but I may increase it even more to make the early game smoother, especially for the AI.
Also, Authority gets 50% Maintenance reduction for units instead of 15%, which makes it viable as a policy tree despite the changes (they are fewer units around, but they cost a lot more).
This, plus the unit supply reduction from balparak that I'm currently integrating in the tweaks and an increase to all military units' maintenance costs, make it so that finding gold sources is crucial, for costs are all around higher. I augmented the base gold of the palace by 5 to compensate the harsher starting point, but I may increase it even more to make the early game smoother, especially for the AI.
Also, Authority gets 50% Maintenance reduction for units instead of 15%, which makes it viable as a policy tree despite the changes (they are fewer units around, but they cost a lot more).
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What currently determines unit maintenance cost? Is it a flat amount, and can it be scaled at all (not talking about in-game actions like Congress affecting cost)? For instance, could resource units (horse, swords) have x2 costs as well? Maintaining high-quality armies naturally costing more?
Rekk
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
- Messages
- 2,601
Every report of income I've seen has been from Carthage and Portugal (and Industry on top of that). Not exactly good civilizations to establish the baseline problem.
AI prices should come down with the next patch once they're no longer so desperate for
@azum4roll has also suggested an updated valuation of deals. From what I understand, AI sell low to humans and buy high, when they trade at the average of these prices with other AI.
AI prices should come down with the next patch once they're no longer so desperate for
@azum4roll has also suggested an updated valuation of deals. From what I understand, AI sell low to humans and buy high, when they trade at the average of these prices with other AI.
AI pays more for luxuries it "needs" but doesn't charge the player more when you need one. Player can hoard resources for cheap when they're not "needed" in anticipation of WLTKDs, AI won't. Prices for duplicate resources without demand are pocket change in both directions. Although I didn't like trade offer spam either, a lot of users seemed to think the AI buying luxuries not in demand was detrimental despite it giving growth and some policy-dependent advantages. The player and AI approach trade differently right now and this can be exploited.
Road costs scaling over time would be interesting (I hope you aren't thinking of starting them at 2 gold in ancient era).
Yea I actually had a moment where I sold a resource for 8 gold to an unhappy civ, then they connected that same luxury and sold it back to me for 3. Stonks
edit: something like this is in the works and will come in the next version(s) it seems, so we have progress in that area.
Increasing maintenance over time makes sense, hope someone can work out the numbers and make a proposal for that, the sooner the better. I'm fine with units costing more too, currently all combat units cost 2, right? Siege, cavalry, armor etc. could cost more, and the baseline could also be increased over time. I'm not sure if it works but we have an ExtraMaintenanceCost column in the Units table, maybe this could be easier than I thought.
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I think it scales over time.
I recall deleting a unit (combat or worker) in later eras and seeing my GPT increase by 3 or 4.
Delvemor
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2020
- Messages
- 267
I would rather reduce gold generation than increasing production costs. The latter are fine, the former can be very high but it depends on the civ and policies choice. If I go Morocco Progress Statecraft Industry it should not be surprising that I'm swimming in gold.
I think gold generation from trade route is the main issue for AI inflation, which then can be exploited by player through trade deal.
This also open up the issue with global gpt median, which is also inflated due to a handful of cities with TR have ridiculous amount of extra gpt, thus raising the median and give any city without a TR running a ridiculous amount of gold deficit.
Tbh when I first came back to VP after a long break I was surprised how much gold a TR give too.
This also open up the issue with global gpt median, which is also inflated due to a handful of cities with TR have ridiculous amount of extra gpt, thus raising the median and give any city without a TR running a ridiculous amount of gold deficit.
Tbh when I first came back to VP after a long break I was surprised how much gold a TR give too.
AndreyK
King
I think that we can just make gold purchases more expensive by 50% for beginning. Also we can make road maintenance scaling and then maybe adjust unit maintenance scaler.
What era are people thinking of when they refer to this inflation?
I want to push my point on chanceries a bit. By industrial era its not hard to be friends with all city-states (that you aren't at war with). Being their ally can require hundreds of influence but friendship only needs 30, a single diplo unit gives 70 influence, quests (without statecraft) give nearly 100. On a standard size map that's up to 16 gold per chancery.
I want to push my point on chanceries a bit. By industrial era its not hard to be friends with all city-states (that you aren't at war with). Being their ally can require hundreds of influence but friendship only needs 30, a single diplo unit gives 70 influence, quests (without statecraft) give nearly 100. On a standard size map that's up to 16 gold per chancery.
I wonder if a soft-cap system for some of the scaling yields would be agreeable. For chanceries for example, "1
for each friend, up to 8, and 1 for every 2 friends after that."
It's a lot more help text to communicate it, but maybe it's worth considering? I think there's other scaling yields that could benefit from this balance lever (thinking of some of the beliefs).
for each friend, up to 8, and 1 for every 2 friends after that."It's a lot more help text to communicate it, but maybe it's worth considering? I think there's other scaling yields that could benefit from this balance lever (thinking of some of the beliefs).
Here are the building maintenance costs by era:
My suggestions:
- Increase maintenance for
- - Medieval buildings by 1. (Garden and Chancery will cost 4, others 3. I'm not sure why those two have more maintenance, we can standardize them all at 3)
- - Renaissance buildings by 1 (All cost 5)
- - Industrial buildings by 2 (Factory, Seaport, Trainstation, Stockyard (what was this?) to 9, others to 8)
-- Modern buildings except Wire Service by 4, Wire Service by 6 (so all cost the same at 12. Wire service had 2 less maintenance, seems like an oversight?)
-- Atomic buildings by 6 (all cost 16)
-- Information buildings by 10 (all cost 20. The effect will be minimal though since you can only have one of the plants, and the other buildings are SS factory & interpretive center, both are well deserving of such a cost)
I'm feeling good about Industrial and after, what do you think, is it too much, or does it start too early? Should Garden and Chancery keep the increased maintenance?? I'll propose if we can agree on the numbers.
Spoiler Table :
My suggestions:
- Increase maintenance for
- - Medieval buildings by 1. (Garden and Chancery will cost 4, others 3. I'm not sure why those two have more maintenance, we can standardize them all at 3)
- - Renaissance buildings by 1 (All cost 5)
- - Industrial buildings by 2 (Factory, Seaport, Trainstation, Stockyard (what was this?) to 9, others to 8)
-- Modern buildings except Wire Service by 4, Wire Service by 6 (so all cost the same at 12. Wire service had 2 less maintenance, seems like an oversight?)
-- Atomic buildings by 6 (all cost 16)
-- Information buildings by 10 (all cost 20. The effect will be minimal though since you can only have one of the plants, and the other buildings are SS factory & interpretive center, both are well deserving of such a cost)
I'm feeling good about Industrial and after, what do you think, is it too much, or does it start too early? Should Garden and Chancery keep the increased maintenance?? I'll propose if we can agree on the numbers.
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The only recent thing we have really changed about gold in the last few versions is trade valuations, so that is likely the best place to start.
The fact that I can get 30+ gpt deals from an AI is going to cause inflation, especially when I can do that 2 or 3 or 4 times.
I would start there, and see how it looks
The fact that I can get 30+ gpt deals from an AI is going to cause inflation, especially when I can do that 2 or 3 or 4 times.
I would start there, and see how it looks
