How should maritimes be nerfed?

[orangecape]

I think the real problem is maritime scaling. If Maritime CS granted the same amount of food as a cultural CS grants culture but split it evenly over your civ it would still be a useful bonus and worth getting but certainly not overpowered. It would also give a significant bonus to small empires since they could ally two MCS and get 40 food - a very big benefit if you have only 3-8 cities. It would mean that the free growth in desert towns ICS style would be dead and people would have to pick appropriate places for their cities and build farms to encourage growth.

I do agree that with this change growth would be quite slow at large city sizes without an awful lot of farms so growth beyond 10 should probably be accelerated some.

 

[Slowpoke]

Hmmm... I've come up with an interesting idea based on these posts. What if maritime cities gifted an equivalent of a food caravan every X units, that would function sort of like in civ 2. Basically, send it to a city, and disbanding it there would create a building that produces 3-4 food per turn.

This would work equally well with medium and large empires, only the very small (cultural victory type) empires would be disadvantaged. It would allow for the player to make interesting choices based on which city would need food most (put it in that small city there, or in that hills concentrated larger one?).

 

[kekekeke]

City states is great idea, but I think Firaxis made them way too important. "City States General I" would be more suitable name for the game as it is now.

Imo city states should be major power only early to mid game and become less important towards modern ages. I don't see Stockholm feeding whole continents or UN asking opinions from Helsinki. Whole diplomatic victory conditition is so stupid, I never play that enabled.

To fix city states, nerfing one and buffing another is not enough. Their whole role must be reevaluated and changed accordingly.

 

[generalwar]

When you become allied to a city, you should then be able to choose which of your cities receives a food bonus. It should be the same as the current (non-modded) capitol bonus. You would also be able to change which city receives the bonus via the diplomacy menu, the same way you can tell military allies to stop sending troops.

I don't think that allowing only one city the bonus is nerfing it too much, as it would still be pretty powerful. If it is too much, then maybe allowing two or three cities the bonus would work better. However just having one would be easier to manage, and would provide a good incentive to acquire more maritime states, in order to give the bonus to other cities.

It's a good idea this with maritime CSs that give food only to few cities. I have another idea. CSs could become a bigger expanse than they are now. I mean, you should pay them 500 gold for the smallest influence (30?) 1000 for the one that now costs 500(65? influence) and 2000 for the biggest influence, that would make hard for us to have tons of CSs for allies, in fact, it would decrease the number of allied CSs twice. Instead of 3 allied CSs you'll have 1 and later on, instead 10, you'll have 5 allied CS. I think that would be a simple solution, what do you think?

Edit: btw, yesterday, I tried a game with Mongols on Pangea with 10 or 11 AIs and without CSs and it was a really cool game, my culture was going like crazy, around 100 per turn in the 17th centuary (I was concetraded on constant war and I didn't build any culture, but puppet states did) and at the end I conquered every city on the continent and had over 800 GPT!!! That's my personal record. Yes, game was on King difficult, but I prove to myself that maritime CSs aren't the vital thing to have a mega empire. In that game I had around 50 cities I think( imagine small pangea filled with cities) and they were growing pretty good. Of course, it would be 10 times easier with maritime CSs. WHat I'm trying to say is that with a such big empire, with 800GPT I can buy 30 inluence from 3 CSs! And if they would raise the price for them I could buy only 30 inluence from 1 CS every turn and not 65 from 1 CS and 30 from another now. In that way, I would think how to spend my money even with a such powerful and rich empire, because I would want to buy some buildings or military upgrades if I would playing on huge map and all. Who would want to spend 5000 gold to get 65 influence from 5 CSs or 10000 gold for 125 influence from 5 CSs. I think that's a good example why CSs should be tougher to buy.

 

[Slowpoke]

Well, as others say, an across the board nerf won't stop the serious imbalance that results in always choosing a maritime first. Which isn't to say nerfing bribes isn't needed, I halved bribe influence in my next version, and I know thalassicus is doing something similar. But maritimes need a "special" nerf just for them

 

[generalwar]

Well, as others say, an across the board nerf won't stop the serious imbalance that results in always choosing a maritime first. Which isn't to say nerfing bribes isn't needed, I halved bribe influence in my next version, and I know thalassicus is doing something similar. But maritimes need a "special" nerf just for them

I agree with you that maritimes need a special nerf just for them. And if they raise the prise of buying CSs people will think between maritime and cultured CS and that would be fun. Btw, military CSs should be more powerful and if we want to make them more powerful they have to be a bigger expanse, it would be unreal to get u unit every 15 turns for 500 gold, but it wouldn't be so unreal for 1000 gold( and I'm not saying how often you get unit from MCS but how often you should get it from them for the price you pay). That means 1000 gold=65 influence, you get few turns of allied and around 60 turns of friendly status and that would mean 4 units for 1000 gold in that long period. But, it's a little unreal to get 4 infatry for 1000 gold. The numer of military units per turn should be decrasing by ages. You should get 2 infatry in modern time, that's not bad. And with maritime CSs, I think their bonuses shoul increase only 2 times, when you enter in industrial and when you enter in modern era, because since that time, people are getting more food within less land.
Conclusion: Raise CS's value and decrase maritime CS's bonus and increase military state bonus or change it to be competitive with other 2 type of CSs to make you choose what kind of game what kind of victory are you trying to accomplish, because CSs really help you to accomplish your victory faster, but they need to make you ask, what I want to do? Have a unit factory( military CS) or bigger pop for more specialist( maritime CS) or cultural victory or at least get some policies faster for better empire( like order or autocrachy or freedom). That's what I want to think about when I'll be choosing which military CSs am I going to choose.

 

[Rudster816]

I think one of the biggest problems is that the gold bribe cost is static throughout the entire game. The influence you get with each bribe goes down slightly, but this isnt enough. This makes it really easy for larger empires to ally themselves with multiple CS's and be able to sustain allied status throughout the entire game. In contrast, smaller empires make less gold, and they get less benefits from Maritime CS's, which is a double whammy for them.

The amount of gold for each tier of bribe (250, 500, 100) should change based on the size of an empire (cities, and tiles controlled, not population). Smaller Empires will, if balanced correctly, be able to keep the same amount of CS allies. This would also keep the game more realistic for people who like to make it as real as possible. If the US donated the same amount of money to some relief aid as Luxembourg, who do you think would get more "Influence" out of it?

Also, it might be nice to set something up where the more CS's your allied\friends with, the faster your influence drains with all of them.

A mod doing something like this could also make some small changes to the Patronage SP's.

 

[generalwar]

I think one of the biggest problems is that the gold bribe cost is static throughout the entire game. The influence you get with each bribe goes down slightly, but this isnt enough. This makes it really easy for larger empires to ally themselves with multiple CS's and be able to sustain allied status throughout the entire game. In contrast, smaller empires make less gold, and they get less benefits from Maritime CS's, which is a double whammy for them.

The amount of gold for each tier of bribe (250, 500, 100) should change based on the size of an empire (cities, and tiles controlled, not population). Smaller Empires will, if balanced correctly, be able to keep the same amount of CS allies. This would also keep the game more realistic for people who like to make it as real as possible. If the US donated the same amount of money to some relief aid as Luxembourg, who do you think would get more "Influence" out of it?

I think that's unreal not real idea. Basically, you said that bigger empires would pay more and smaller empires less for the same amount of food. What, CSs is going to demand smaller amount of money because they are smaller. What you said is the same as when The Netherlands would try to sell it's food they produce to other countries and it would demand 180 billions from USA and only 10 billions from Croatia. That's just an example, but that's totally unreal. What matter does it make if USA and Luxemburg donates the same amount of money? It's not related with game whatsoever. CS is going to sell it's food, because buying influence= buying food and for CS it's selling food, isn't it? So if maritime CS is the Netherlands and USA pay for their food 10 mill and so does the Luxembourg, someone has to pay more to get that food, i.e., to buy it. It's totally unreal that the Netherlands is going to sell 10 mill bushels of food to USA for 100 bill and that same amount of 10 mill bushels for 10 bill to Luxembourg. How can you call that real? I don't understand that. It would be balanced, but totally unreal.

 

[Rudster816]

I think that's unreal not real idea. Basically, you said that bigger empires would pay more and smaller empires less for the same amount of food. What, CSs is going to demand smaller amount of money because they are smaller. What you said is the same as when The Netherlands would try to sell it's food they produce to other countries and it would demand 180 billions from USA and only 10 billions from Croatia. That's just an example, but that's totally unreal. What matter does it make if USA and Luxemburg donates the same amount of money? It's not related with game whatsoever. CS is going to sell it's food, because buying influence= buying food and for CS it's selling food, isn't it? So if maritime CS is the Netherlands and USA pay for their food 10 mill and so does the Luxembourg, someone has to pay more to get that food, i.e., to buy it. It's totally unreal that the Netherlands is going to sell 10 mill bushels of food to USA for 100 bill and that same amount of 10 mill bushels for 10 bill to Luxembourg. How can you call that real? I don't understand that. It would be balanced, but totally unreal.

Since the biggest factor for the bribe calculation would be number of cities, the US would get more food because food is given out on a per city basis. Therefore large empires receive more food, and hence pay more. Tiles would only be a factor because they can help determine how much gold your bringing in. It could also be used to penalize ICS style empires with low City\Tile ratios.

 

[Melchizedek]

I agree with the poster who said the other types of city states should be brought up to their level. The military CSs could give XPs, and the cultural ones could conceivably offer science. I think two additional changes could make this work well. First, the AI has to threat them right, that's a given. And second, it would be neat if the amount of the bonus ramped up over time, so that you couldn't just drop gold on a CS and get full benefit. You would have to work it for sometime, and maybe even achieve some of its quests. That would keep the CIV AI from buying them out from under you without warning, and also make the fight for city state influence more tactical.

 

[Melchizedek]

Also, I disagree with them assumption that all CS types must be equally powerful as a matter of principle. Sure, it's okay if they are, but I don't think it's some kind of crime if one is better than another. Some map tiles are better than others, after all, and there's no great outcry about how they're unbalanced.

Sometimes, imbalance might contribute something to the game, and stuff that could be criticized as OP actually makes the game a lot of fun to play. (Lightbulbing Philosophy and Education for an early liberalism in Civ IV was probably OP, but I'd smack the developer who tried to take it away with that bone I had to pick with him...)

 

[bryanw1995]

Did you try playing without city states? I don't like them. I think they are gamey, abusable, break immersion.
However, if you remove them, many things fall apart:
You can't accumulate culture and food as fast, makign a cultural victory difficult. Many social policies fall apart (the whole patronage tree plus the 33% decay for other civs in Order), several nations get their unique ability destroyed (Siam, Greece, Mongolia).
In addition, I suspect the resources placement in the random maps not to cope well with the absence of city states when it places luxuries.

The result is that not using city states ends up with a worse game than using them. It's then possible to use house rules like 'no more than 1 maritime CS ally' or the like, but it feels very artificial.
I'd rather get rid of city states or give them meaningful diplomacy (interact with them in some way other than throwing money at them). Getting rid of them would require increased culture and food. Food yields from specials (wheat...) could be put to +2 or 3 for instance. Culture buildings (wonders in particular) and specialists (I mean, great artists are so bad, the specialist only gives ONE cultureà could be increased too in order to compensate for the lack of cultural city states.
Overall, the game would require a lot of changes to make up for the lack of city states because the game hasn't been balanced at all without them.

huh? GA's give 4 culture, and that is multiplied by up to +333% so can end up being as much as 17 in the mid/late stages. that's a pretty decent culture boost for a small empire going for cultural victory.

 

[bryanw1995]

Easiest solution would be to have a setting to keep people from putting cities within X hexes of each other.

I mean, this HAS to be a multiplayer argument doesn't it? If it's just an ICS complaint, then it's simple: Don't do it. I mean why argue a point that it is unrealistic when you are not playing the game realistically in the first place

the ai is using them much better. I've now played 2 games since the patch where siam absolutely abused all the maritimes. In one of them, I thought that napoleon was just being bloodthirsty when he randomly attacked copenhagen until I noticed that siam was getting ~ 20 food per turn in its city tiles and copenhagen (who was surrounded by napoleon) was allied with siam. I quickly bought up the other maritimes to keep siam's food under control. Maybe they just use this b/c it's their UA, but it seems that greece should be doing the same while the mongols should just go ape-s**t on any cs that they see.

 

[Melchizedek]

One last thought. I have found winning a relatively peaceful game hard enough in Civ V (at king level). Domination? Sure, it might be too easy. But the deck is already a bit stacked against you here if you're not a warmonger. The Maritime States help make peaceful games possible. Balance can come from other aspects of them game than just the other CS.

 

[bryanw1995]

This would make CSs unusable for human player in Immortal+.

no it wouldn't. it would just give you more reason to take out those sneaky cs-lovers as early as possible, or maybe even take out their cs allies if the major civ was too far away. definitely adds more difficulty for the game at higher levels at least. besides, what happens when siam/elizabeth keep fighting over a CS and the romans come in and whack it? they end up in a big brawl, and when you liberate the unfortunate CS then you'll get 250 years of a CS ally

 

[biohazard72]

Probably has come up already, but I'll say it: nerfing maritime city-states in the game's current build is a huge mistake. This would force more food tiles to be worked (= less production tiles), increasing production time for buildings which is already too long. To make it work:

1. Nerf Maritime city-states (flat or % bonus, not flat per city)
2. Shorten building production times
3. Make it easier to grow cities

 

[bryanw1995]

It's a good idea this with maritime CSs that give food only to few cities. I have another idea. CSs could become a bigger expanse than they are now. I mean, you should pay them 500 gold for the smallest influence (30?) 1000 for the one that now costs 500(65? influence) and 2000 for the biggest influence, that would make hard for us to have tons of CSs for allies, in fact, it would decrease the number of allied CSs twice. Instead of 3 allied CSs you'll have 1 and later on, instead 10, you'll have 5 allied CS. I think that would be a simple solution, what do you think?

Edit: btw, yesterday, I tried a game with Mongols on Pangea with 10 or 11 AIs and without CSs and it was a really cool game, my culture was going like crazy, around 100 per turn in the 17th centuary (I was concetraded on constant war and I didn't build any culture, but puppet states did) and at the end I conquered every city on the continent and had over 800 GPT!!! That's my personal record. Yes, game was on King difficult, but I prove to myself that maritime CSs aren't the vital thing to have a mega empire. In that game I had around 50 cities I think( imagine small pangea filled with cities) and they were growing pretty good. Of course, it would be 10 times easier with maritime CSs. WHat I'm trying to say is that with a such big empire, with 800GPT I can buy 30 inluence from 3 CSs! And if they would raise the price for them I could buy only 30 inluence from 1 CS every turn and not 65 from 1 CS and 30 from another now. In that way, I would think how to spend my money even with a such powerful and rich empire, because I would want to buy some buildings or military upgrades if I would playing on huge map and all. Who would want to spend 5000 gold to get 65 influence from 5 CSs or 10000 gold for 125 influence from 5 CSs. I think that's a good example why CSs should be tougher to buy.

What about scaling CS influence buying the same way the bonuses are scaled? ie, leave it the same for the early game, then when the first bonus hits (renaissance?) double the cost of CS allys, then double it again when the bonuses improve again in the late game.

That would make it difficult but still workable to have 3-5 CS's for powerful civs, but would also put more emphasis on the quests. if you had enough gold to maintain powerful relations with all the cs's after this then you would have already won the game anyway.

 

[Paradigne]

Haha, wait until you have three opponents take the policy to increase degradation. Then you either have to pay through the nose or starve your people.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I don't think the game is trying to model the maritime city state providing all the food. In my mind the maritime states are like small countries with large sea trade networks, who are buying food everywhere and shipping food to your cities. Until relatively recently, ships were about the only form of transport that had the combination of speed and capacity to move enough food into a city to make a difference.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Probably has come up already, but I'll say it: nerfing maritime city-states in the game's current build is a huge mistake. This would force more food tiles to be worked (= less production tiles), increasing production time for buildings which is already too long. To make it work:

1. Nerf Maritime city-states (flat or % bonus, not flat per city)
2. Shorten building production times
3. Make it easier to grow cities

I don't think it would reduce production as much as it would reduce trading post spam, thus making money harder to come by.