How Difficult do you find the game currently?

[BiteInTheMark]

As mentioned, starting from emperor they get a free worker at start, definitly increase their ability to produce settler, making any easy settler spam like in king much more difficult. Especially if they have mine luxuries around their capitol, cause those are easy to improve and in favor for settler.

The ottoman UA is OP. Trade routes are finished faster, trade units not automatically pillaged when war is declared and give bonuses, no matter if internal or external. I dunno why portugals UA got nerfed, even they were already gaining less yields in comparison to ottomans. Or why external trade routes give much more and better yields than the internal ones.

 

[Elberith Logos]

Agreed... I posted a few days ago that I handled Emperor, but it turns out I just had the stars aligning for me (Or maybe Ottoman's UA is overpowered? That's what I was playing). But my next Emperor games saw my ass getting a thorough spanking. All my neighbours DoW me sooner or later, They pump out tons of units (That I can fight back, but at what cost...), and the speed at which they put out settlers make me wonder if they're building anything at all in their cities!
King is fairly chill, however. The skill gap to Emperor is huge!

I agree with the DoW's. Since all AI's (even "peaceful ones") play more like humans now and take advantage of weakness, you almost always get early DoW--which yeah I can hold off but it puts me even further behind. Guess I'll be using Really Advanced Setup to be giving myself an extra worker and pathfinder. Those bonuses do seem unbalanced just in terms of developing/exploring too "a-historically" or chronologically quickly. What other AI bonuses are on Emperor? Maybe we could just buff them slightly and do away with at least a worker or a pathfinder, preferably both. I want to play on Emperor because King is too easy for me--even though I always randomize my policies to make it more interesting.

 

[Stalker0]

Guess I'll be using Really Advanced Setup to be giving myself an extra worker and pathfinder.

I think this comment was meant to be a knock against the mod but I actually see it as a strength. We have a good difficulty baseline, and some easy tools for people to tailor the experience to exactly how they like to play. That's about as good as it gets.

 

[Elberith Logos]

I think this comment was meant to be a knock against the mod but I actually see it as a strength. We have a good difficulty baseline, and some easy tools for people to tailor the experience to exactly how they like to play. That's about as good as it gets.

Definitely not a knock! I love this mod. Moreso just thinking out loud if anyone wants to copy the idea.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Definitely not a knock! I love this mod. Moreso just thinking out loud if anyone wants to copy the idea.

I am more in favor of removing the worker for the AI, than giving me one, and have done it sometimes. Even under AI nations, the worker can create a disturbance. Those which start on a river, have mine luxury or camps are in an advantage, over those which start in jungle or forest with plantation. In my opinion, cotton is at the moment the worst luxury you can get, cause you need the techs trade and bronze working, a total of 5 techs to get a plantation on a forested tile and only get crappy gold and crappy monopoly (wasnt it even more gold?)

I would remove the additional worker for all difficulties except deity (those sadistic idiots shall have their painful game ), to create smoother increase of difficulty and decrease the desire to insta raid a worker and pillage vs AI neighbors.

 

[matlajs]

Into adition, i can't help myself, but if i play some semi-wide empire pursuing a scientific victory(like now Inca- progress,fealty(took because of zulus and defending my faith),rationalism,order) i have really critical problems to make some money. not only i have to put some buildings aside,forced set some of my cities onto moneymaking, but that i do just for not falling into debt. When everything in late game cost what it costs, especially unit upgrades, i really don't know what i should do first. All that fighting pesky unhappiness increasing here and there with each tech. Also i have noticed, that since a last version i have played last year before break, also building maintanance went up significantly.

And so i think, that order needs desperately some gold here and there, or maintanance free something. because both progress and fealthy do their job, rationalism isn't supposed to make any considerable money, but ideology should. Party leaderships is just not enough.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Into adition, i can't help myself, but if i play some semi-wide empire pursuing a scientific victory(like now Inca- progress,fealty(took because of zulus and defending my faith),rationalism,order) i have really critical problems to make some money. not only i have to put some buildings aside,forced set some of my cities onto moneymaking, but that i do just for not falling into debt. When everything in late game cost what it costs, especially unit upgrades, i really don't know what i should do first. All that fighting pesky unhappiness increasing here and there with each tech. Also i have noticed, that since a last version i have played last year before break, also building maintanance went up significantly.

And so i think, that order needs desperately some gold here and there, or maintanance free something. because both progress and fealthy do their job, rationalism isn't supposed to make any considerable money, but ideology should. Party leaderships is just not enough.

If you went rationalismn, your villages get improved by one policy, making those more efficient. And you should definitly use them as much as possible in this case. Simply didnt build roads directly from one city to another, make some curves to maximize the amount of villiges which are now on the road/railroad. This helps a bit. Ive checked a savegame from a deity player last week to investigate why a big happiness happened. But even he was able to play deity and conquer 2 enemy AI, the road planning and improvement placement was terrible and less efficient than I had expected from a deity player.

The point you mentionend (lot of costs for building maintenance) annoys me too. I think the maintenance was drastically increased to met the high income of gold by a version, the specialists were much much more efficient. Like engineers got +2 gold for free by tech. The maintenance were increased to compensate the high income, but then the specialists were heavily nerfed AND the need buildings introduced, which are now necessary to fight uhappiness, forcing you to construct buildings, which were former only niche buildings (constabulary, circus, zoo, stadium,...).
I will take a comparision how the necessary hammer and maintenance have increased since those changes and maybe it could lead to some maintenance cost reduction, helping with gold in lategame.

 

[TwoPodRay]

What do you guys think of increasing the production penalty on wonders based on previous wonders built? It is currently a 25% increase in production for current era wonders, 15% for previous era, 10% for two previous eras, and no penalties for three or more previous eras. What do you guys think of making it somewhere closer to 40%/40%/25%, or something similiar, to spread the wealth a bit.

I’ve noticed in every game that has a run away (either me or the AI), the run away has a ton of wonders. Wonders help you snowball significantly, and if you’re out in front with culture and science, you’re going to have more time to finish wonders even with massive penalties from current system before anyone else can reach the Tech/Policy threshold to have a shot at them. This just adds fuel to the fire and makes it even easier to snowball. Higher costs means you’ll be hurting your development speed a bit if trying to snag every wonder, making you even more careful and purposeful about which ones you choose, and balancing the power of these game changers! This makes the game harder if you’re the one ahead (which is arguably more fun, keeping the challenge alive longer), and a bit easier if you’re the one lagging (fewer rage quits because you don’t have a chance).

The only thing to consider is will this make warring too strong by capturing wonders instead? Perhaps the possible changes to war or war weariness can balance that out.

 

[andersw]

I'm beginning to see patterns in my warmongering where if I can roll over an AI I gain a LOT.
The sooner I can do this the better, the first AI being the most important basically doubling my land and expanding bonuses from religion, monopolies etc.
With too high difficulty I'll get bogged in and the first AI capture comes too late.
A big difference is probably that the diety players want to challenge themselves, try to push things to the limit and are ok at losing a lot of games while learning and I (and others with me) just want a comfortable gaming experience.

With that said, reading various threads I feel that the entire scale could be moved a step if it was at all possible or maybe that would that break a lot of stuff?
Seems like a surprising amount of players sound comfortable on diety, while the lowest difficulties rarely played at all. (I see comments from prince and up.)
Or are the settler-warlord players just reluctant to be vocal about what lvl they play on and diety players don't actually win that often?

After the changes to happiness (compared to the harsh summer versions) I rarely have any issues with it (even with 20+ city empires), maybe there are extreme playstyles that I do not use that would make it troublesome.
I've learned better how to defend and attack in wars.
Now trying variety of tactics/trees etc, but it's hard to change things when a bit ocd.

 

[Stalker0]

What do you guys think of increasing the production penalty on wonders based on previous wonders built? It is currently a 25% increase in production for current era wonders, 15% for previous era, 10% for two previous eras, and no penalties for three or more previous eras. What do you guys think of making it somewhere closer to 40%/40%/25%, or something similiar, to spread the wealth a bit.

I’ve noticed in every game that has a run away (either me or the AI), the run away has a ton of wonders. Wonders help you snowball significantly, and if you’re out in front with culture and science, you’re going to have more time to finish wonders even with massive penalties from current system before anyone else can reach the Tech/Policy threshold to have a shot at them. This just adds fuel to the fire and makes it even easier to snowball. Higher costs means you’ll be hurting your development speed a bit if trying to snag every wonder, making you even more careful and purposeful about which ones you choose, and balancing the power of these game changers! This makes the game harder if you’re the one ahead (which is arguably more fun, keeping the challenge alive longer), and a bit easier if you’re the one lagging (fewer rage quits because you don’t have a chance).

The only thing to consider is will this make warring too strong by capturing wonders instead? Perhaps the possible changes to war or war weariness can balance that out.

I think the problem is actually the policy restrictions not hammers. I feel this was overturned in the latest version, so a civ with a culture snowball (or the enhancer thst ignores policy restrictions) is the only one getting the wonders

 

[TwoPodRay]

I think the problem is actually the policy restrictions not hammers. I feel this was overturned in the latest version, so a civ with a culture snowball (or the enhancer thst ignores policy restrictions) is the only one getting the wonders

You still can easily be in a situation where one or two Civs are taking all the wonders. Before, all you had to do was be the science leader and you can get more wonders. Now, you need science and culture to get more wonders, which makes it a bit harder since you have to balance your yields/growth, but reducing policy count certainly doesn’t keep snowballs Civs from taking the lion’s share of the wonders. Increasing hammer costs can be used as another catch up mechanic.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

You still can easily be in a situation where one or two Civs are taking all the wonders. Before, all you had to do was be the science leader and you can get more wonders. Now, you need science and culture to get more wonders, which makes it a bit harder since you have to balance your yields/growth, but reducing policy count certainly doesn’t keep snowballs Civs from taking the lion’s share of the wonders. Increasing hammer costs can be used as another catch up mechanic.

The most stupid thing is the amount of policies of the last wonders. The last 2 need 26 policies (you can win a tourismn victory with 27 policies) and are only scientific related. So, if your a science nation, pumping everything into science to get the last techs, your absolutly unable to get those wonders which would help in denying a culture win by others or denying others stealing techs from you. Both things you need as science nations, but you need the culture output of a tourismn nation.
It feels like another artifically forced way, how I have to play.

 

[Workerspam]

The most stupid thing is the amount of policies of the last wonders. The last 2 need 26 policies (you can win a tourismn victory with 27 policies) and are only scientific related. So, if your a science nation, pumping everything into science to get the last techs, your absolutly unable to get those wonders which would help in denying a culture win by others or denying others stealing techs from you. Both things you need as science nations, but you need the culture output of a tourismn nation.
It feels like another artifically forced way, how I have to play.

How many times are you winning a tourism victory with the minimum number of policies? It's been done but that hasn't been the norm in my competitive games so I don't think it's a good barometer of what the right number of policies should be for those wonders.

If policy restrictions never restrict you from wonders then they aren't restrictions. If they're so beneficial for science victories then you should concentrate more on gaining policies, even if it's at the expense of tech, to ensure you can build them.

Seems like this could be an example of good balance to me: tech so hard you don't need the wonders or balance tech and policies and build the wonders. Two paths to the same goal. There could still be a balance issue to address but I don't think it should necessarily be tech hard/skimp on policies AND get the big science wonders.

 

[TwoPodRay]

I’d prefer a mix of options for culture victory:

Option 1: 27 total policies, content in ideology, and Dominant with all other Civs (or maybe a new Influence level between Infuential, 100%, and Dominant, 200%, call it Powerful or Prominent and make it 150%), then you can build CEP.

Option 2: 35 total policies (equal to 3 trees and a full Ideology, or just 35 random policies), Influential or better with all, content, then can build CEP. (Might need to tweak the 35 to something lower?)

Possible option 3: Influential or better with all, content, plus Internet tech, then can build CEP.

Super culture runaways would either need to be so far ahead (150% influence) that they should win quick (option 1), or have to wait for Option 2, which needs less influence but more policies. If all else fails, you can achieve culture victory with Option 3, which is the same as we had been doing before, except one tech row further. Given how each other Victory Condition only has 1 requirement vs 3 options, (take all capitals, build spaceship, build UN with world Ideaolgy and get votes for leader), it may be unlikely to see something like this, but it might be easier to tweak culture strength.

 

[CppMaster]

It's overcomplicated. I would opt for 27 total policies and Influential with all civs.

 

[neo_arcadia]

Higher costs means you’ll be hurting your development speed a bit if trying to snag every wonder, making you even more careful and purposeful about which ones you choose, and balancing the power of these game changers! This makes the game harder if you’re the one ahead (which is arguably more fun, keeping the challenge alive longer), and a bit easier if you’re the one lagging (fewer rage quits because you don’t have a chance).
.

Isn't that already the case? I don't think "intentionally planning to snag every wonder from the beginning of the game" is a valid strategy for any civ even for Egypt. Build what you need (and make effort to do so) and forget the rest. From my experience I still see wonders being spread to many civ, especially at the beginning. After that, it shows you who the real powerhouse are in your game by who build wonders the most. I am not feeling any need to increase the costs more. It's already difficult as it is. Especially at Renaissance when you have Chichen Itza, Pisa, Sistine Chapel (and that one city-state wonder which I almost always fail to build because other civ snagged it first). Pick one, forget the other three.

 

[TwoPodRay]

Isn't that already the case? I don't think "intentionally planning to snag every wonder from the beginning of the game" is a valid strategy for any civ even for Egypt. Build what you need (and make effort to do so) and forget the rest. From my experience I still see wonders being spread to many civ, especially at the beginning. After that, it shows you who the real powerhouse are in your game by who build wonders the most. I am not feeling any need to increase the costs more. It's already difficult as it is. Especially at Renaissance when you have Chichen Itza, Pisa, Sistine Chapel (and that one city-state wonder which I almost always fail to build because other civ snagged it first). Pick one, forget the other three.

It’s not making things harder if you’re behind and not building many wonders. It’s balancing and spreading out wonders. That’s why the penalties were introduced in the first place. By the time you’re getting to those later wonders, you’re probably making more gold and can rush them, probably making more Engineers so you rush more, etc, and current cost penalties aren’t terribly prohibitive. If you’re first to get to all of those techs you mentioned, why WOULDN’T you give as many of them a shot as possible. They’re all very impactful. You aren’t hurting yourself much if you do go for them.

Showing who is the powerhouse by wonders built is...a nice concept...but how does that balance the game. Giving them even more wonders means they’re snowballing even harder, and the way the current game is designed, there are a LOT of mechanisms to deter runaways and snowballing, because that makes the game less fun and less challenging. You’ve got medians, current penalty costs, anti-warmonger fervor, increased hostility to leaders, etc. I’m not arguing for anything that isn’t in the game already, and I’m not asking to make it impossible to build more than one wonder per era. I’m just saying the current penalties may not be prohibitive enough to achieve the intended purpose, based on a ton of games that I’ve played (and I’ve been testing increased penalties and it isn’t even that prohibitive at these numbers). I would love to know facts of others experiences, such as how often the score leaders are wonder leaders as well. And how much do those two facets correlate. Spreading wonders out a bit will allow everyone to be more competitive throughout the game.

 

[documental]

I'm not entirely opposed to upping the wonder penalty (though this may make you too reliant on engineers) but I do think before we do that I am also in favor of removing the extra worker the AI gets from emperor onwards. I think this may be a huge factor in AI snowballing as some starts you can make extensive use of that worker whereas others, such as a jungle start, you might as well not even have it. Terrain and resources can already be a huge factor in the early game that there's no need to compound this problem even further.

 

[TwoPodRay]

I'm not entirely opposed to upping the wonder penalty (though this may make you too reliant on engineers) but I do think before we do that I am also in favor of removing the extra worker the AI gets from emperor onwards. I think this may be a huge factor in AI snowballing as some starts you can make extensive use of that worker whereas others, such as a jungle start, you might as well not even have it. Terrain and resources can already be a huge factor in the early game that there's no need to compound this problem even further.

In the testing I’ve been doing, I have removed that extra worker. Can be done manually in DifficultyMod.xml

 

[neo_arcadia]

It’s not making things harder if you’re behind and not building many wonders. It’s balancing and spreading out wonders. That’s why the penalties were introduced in the first place. By the time you’re getting to those later wonders, you’re probably making more gold and can rush them, probably making more Engineers so you rush more, etc, and current cost penalties aren’t terribly prohibitive. If you’re first to get to all of those techs you mentioned, why WOULDN’T you give as many of them a shot as possible. They’re all very impactful. You aren’t hurting yourself much if you do go for them.

Showing who is the powerhouse by wonders built is...a nice concept...but how does that balance the game. Giving them even more wonders means they’re snowballing even harder, and the way the current game is designed, there are a LOT of mechanisms to deter runaways and snowballing, because that makes the game less fun and less challenging. You’ve got medians, current penalty costs, anti-warmonger fervor, increased hostility to leaders, etc. I’m not arguing for anything that isn’t in the game already, and I’m not asking to make it impossible to build more than one wonder per era. I’m just saying the current penalties may not be prohibitive enough to achieve the intended purpose, based on a ton of games that I’ve played (and I’ve been testing increased penalties and it isn’t even that prohibitive at these numbers). I would love to know facts of others experiences, such as how often the score leaders are wonder leaders as well. And how much do those two facets correlate. Spreading wonders out a bit will allow everyone to be more competitive throughout the game.

Exactly. The punishment for building too many wonder is in the right number already. I don't think we need any more reduction in wonder penalty. Besides, there's no guarantee that new value of production cost percentage modifier is actually solving the wonder spread within game. That's what I experienced in my game; a 10 or 11-player civ game. Most of the times in the early game (until the end of medieval) every civilizations have built at least one wonder. I'm satisfied with that condition. Building wonder have no strict limitations, well, except only one on the map.

By the way, we have different opinions towards "You aren’t hurting yourself much if you do go for them". The penalty of FAILED ATTEMPT at wonder building is big for me it really affects my decision. Weighing the pros-cons of building wonder is a big mini-game within civ. Do I need this wonder, really? Can I put this wonder outside of my capital? How many turns of sweating and sigh-and-relieve will this wonder be? Who's gonna be the contender? How close other empire are in the tech and culture overview? Am I going to have sufficient gold to invest in this wonder? Do I need gold for other things in the mean time? Can I afford that city to be in constant infrastructure while building this wonder? How many trade route I need to support the city? Is the payoff huge? Do I need Golden Age with Great Artist to boost the production? Can I protect my empire while building this wonder? Can I afford to lose this wonder to someone else who also want it? And Again, do I REALLY need this wonder? If all of those questions and doubt are justified, that's when I click "Build this Wonder". It's not just a matter of "Just Do It". Maybe because I am usually on edge about wonder building tho lol.

I am open to be proven wrong based on other's experience.