[Ideas and Suggestions] Maintenance, Hammer, and Research adjustment mod

[Feyd Rautha]

**I have downloaded the SDK and decided to start this project myself though I could still use help. Please follow this thread if you are interested in this mod.**

A lot of discussion has been had the past week on the hammer cost of things and the maintenance required for various things. I am not one to simply jump on the "rebalance" wagon, but I've personally started to feel the tug of boredom in my games from start to finish (instead of just the beginning when production is SUPPOSED to be bad). Economy is another problem. I am not one that thinks I should be able to build everything in every city or have a unit on every square, but I think costs are a bit high (although I think maintenance is in most cases just right). On the opposite hand, I've felt that research comes a bit too fast as I typically am finding that I have

So, I am posting here to produce a mod that adjusts the game slightly (no +1 production to every tile) in order to simply make it flow better (hopefully not in an unbalancing way).

My current thoughts are as follows:

Reduce building hammer costs: I understand the desire to make buildings be a bigger investment, but when I can produce a wonder from two techs back faster than I can produce a building I just unlocked that's too long. Generally, barring a few oddities that cost more than wonders (Stock Exchange, I'm looking at you), the times seem about 2-5 turns too long for an average city. Maybe a 10% reduction in hammer cost would do the trick?

Reduce unit hammer costs: I'm just throwing this out there. I still think that overall a turn or more could be shaved off each unit (again for an average city), and things would remain balanced. The only times I've seen problems is later in the game, and I think those prices are much higher because it is expected that you have built arsenals and other unit production boosters. Epic speed in a strong production city and a fighter takes 17 turns? That's a problem because there are no aircraft production boosting facilities.

Building maintenance costs: I think this is the area where I'm most torn. Building maintenance is generally rather sound. I think some buildings have costs that make them silly to build (a Watermill for example), but generally the maintenance for the building itself is fine. I think there SHOULD be more than one maintenance cost reduction for buildings in the game. Here is my thought on a "fix"...

1. Unlocking Commerce gives -10% reduction in maintenance.
2. Socialism changes to a -20% reduction in cost.
3. Commerce and Order become mutually exlusive chains (Burgeoise vs. Proletariats and all) akin to Piety and Rationalism.
4. Trade Unions in Commerce removes the cost for Harbors and Halves road/railroad maintenance. Finally it could halve the cost of a factory.

I think this would make enough of a change to make an impact (and I think we're talking 20-30 gpt here).

Unit maintenance costs: These are way too high. I think budgeting for at least some army is part of any nation, but the exponential nature of these costs is too restrictive to building an army that can even defend one's nation. I think a couple things could be done. First there could be a small stipend of "free units", but the main thing is to find the code for unit maintenance and tweak the curve so it is much more gradual.

Tech costs: Techs are coming too fast in my opinion. Research agreements are too cheap and research is too fast. I'd keep the ancient techs the same, but later techs need to go up by about 10-20% per era if not more. I like a slower game, but even on Epic and Marathon I'm getting techs faster than I can even upgrade units.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Is anybody with modding experience on board with me on this or does anyone have input to refine this mod?

 

[Optimizer]

Looks interesting. I agree that some social policies need a boost. See this mod project for social policies:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381895

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Can anyone help me find the unit maintenance code? Also, I'm thinking most of this mod can be addressed in the "handicapsinfo" xml file?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Updated initial post. Downloaded SDK and will be trying to mod this myself. If you see an area where you can help (even when it comes to the xml files I need to edit), I welcome assistance.

 

[Tomice]

Before you start changing individual building costs, there are values for gamespeed-settings (CIV5GameSpeeds.xml) you could alter.

<GameSpeeds>
		<Row>
			<ID>0</ID>
			<Type>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_MARATHON</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_HELP</Help>
			<DealDuration>90</DealDuration>
			<GrowthPercent>300</GrowthPercent>
			<TrainPercent>300</TrainPercent>
			<ConstructPercent>300</ConstructPercent>
			<CreatePercent>300</CreatePercent>
			<ResearchPercent>300</ResearchPercent>
			<GoldPercent>300</GoldPercent>
			<GoldGiftMod>67</GoldGiftMod>
			<BuildPercent>300</BuildPercent>
			<ImprovementPercent>300</ImprovementPercent>
			<GreatPeoplePercent>300</GreatPeoplePercent>
			<CulturePercent>300</CulturePercent>
			<BarbPercent>400</BarbPercent>
			<FeatureProductionPercent>300</FeatureProductionPercent>
			<UnitDiscoverPercent>300</UnitDiscoverPercent>
			<UnitHurryPercent>300</UnitHurryPercent>
			<UnitTradePercent>300</UnitTradePercent>
			<GoldenAgePercent>200</GoldenAgePercent>
			<HurryPercent>100</HurryPercent>
			<InflationPercent>10</InflationPercent>
			<InflationOffset>-270</InflationOffset>
			<VictoryDelayPercent>300</VictoryDelayPercent>
			<IconAtlas>GAMESPEED_ATLAS</IconAtlas>
			<PortraitIndex>0</PortraitIndex>
		</Row>

As you can see, almost everything takes 300% of the normal time on marathon. What about playing with these values first to find a better balance?

Changing the cost of individual buildings or even changing tile yields is way riskier to screw something up I think.



Sadly, I can't find a value for unit upkeep. Maybe it's somewhere in the difficulty settings?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Unit upkeep is in the handicap info. I just don't know what each item means (there is a unit free prod and unit free gold line, but I don't know what to alter to change that aspect).

I was already thinking that besides the handicap info the next thing to alter would be the gamespeed info file. That might actually do the deed with extensive testing (since I'm not a math person and can't calculate how much percent +/- would need to be changed to cause the effects I seek.)

 

[Feyd Rautha]

What do you think of this...

Great Scientists give 100 science x2 for classical, x4 for medieval, x6 for renaissaince, x8 for industrial, x10 for modern, and x12 for future instead of a free tech.

Research agreements give the same bonus upon completion.

This would forestall some of the speed through the game and keep research agreements generally more balanced (although I think they should cost more).

 

[Tomice]

I participated in the SC2 beta, and from what I've learned there, one shouldn't change stuff on every front, especially not with the accuracy of a sledgehammer Why don't you just change some easily calculable number and play a game or two?

What about 20% faster production for everything (to keep it balanced) with a related 20% reduction in unit upkeep?

Since you don't change the relation of costs, you'd have valuable information about the effect of generally faster production. The reduction in upkeep is just to keep the AI from bancrupting itself, because it would probably mindlessly produce 20% more units.
The same fear is true for building upkeep, but I guess we don't have a percentage modifier for this, do we?



Things like individual units/buildings/GPs are better tweaked later, I think.




I will probably join you in your effort at a later point, but I want to get a better feeling for vanilla civ5 first.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Oh I definitely agree. I'm just throwing ideas out mainly. Also, the problem with changing the production rates is that I don't think wonders cost too much, just regular buildings (therefore the gamespeed file wouldn't be a good choice for changes).

 

[royal62184]

The economy mod has already done several of these tweaks in the exact same way you were planning to. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385224. might be better to help each other instead of doing parallel projects. up to you guys though.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Thanks for that link. That does look similar although it doesn't address the problem regarding the inability to keep a reasonable military force before upkeep kills you.

 

[royal62184]

true but the Reduce building hammer costs, Reduce unit hammer costs, and Tech costs are at least done in a similar manner as you described which is 3 of your 5 goals.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Oh definitely! I could easily tweak it to match if there is already something in place. I've been wanting to up the xp from barbs to 60 to make it fall more in line with IV (3 promotions) and to make barbs something you'd want in the late game even after you get a +45 xp unit factory established.

All these things and more could just be worked into it. Even the UA changes idea thread below.