Inca

[Funak]

Instead of boosting the food the terrace farm generates, why add an additional yield, like 1 tourism or 1 science per farm.

If that's not enough of a boost, you could add to the +1 food / adjacent mountain +1 other yield per adjacent mountain, be it science, culture, tourism, gold, or whatever. This would further boost each individual super tile, but presumably be rare enough to not be over powered. How often, for instance, do we see a readily workable, in range hill surrounded by 4/5 mountains?

This doesn't really change anything. Low/no mountain terrace-farms are still going to be weak while 4/5 mountain terrace-farms are going to be super-strong.

Again, instead of adjacent mountain tiles causing this stacking buff, you could go with adjacent terrace farms causing this buff. I'm guess both of these options would be straightforward enough to code?

Big clumps of hills are pretty rare but do exist, so this is going to be a nightmare to balance.

 

[Tubbilicious]

This doesn't really change anything. Low/no mountain terrace-farms are still going to be weak while 4/5 mountain terrace-farms are going to be super-strong.

It's not supposed to change anything. What it's supposed to do is enhance the Inca's occasional super tile play style, and it does so by allowing the player to hunt for exactly the same type of tile; a hill, adjacent to at least some mountains. I believe Gazebo is right to try and maintain this flavour and play aspect of the civilisation, firstly because it's unique, secondly because it plays well with the Inca's other abilities, and thirdly because it's an enjoyable mechanic from the base game.

What it's worth noting is that one can only balance for what is usually the case, not what may theoretically be or not be the case. England shouldn't be rebalanced because when land locked they do not get access to their unique unit. The Inca should not be reblanced because occasionally they get very few hills. Both should be balanced around what is typically the case.

Example that happened to me last week: I loaded in as Venice, alone on a continent with no city states and no other civilisations. I had no one to send trade routes to. This doesn't call for a rewrite of Venice, it calls for a new game.

Big clumps of hills are pretty rare but do exist, so this is going to be a nightmare to balance.

See above response.

 

[Funak]

It's not supposed to change anything. What it's supposed to do is enhance the Inca's occasional super tile play style, and it does so by allowing the player to hunt for exactly the same type of tile; a hill, adjacent to at least some mountains. I believe Gazebo is right to try and maintain this flavour and play aspect of the civilisation, firstly because it's unique, secondly because it plays well with the Inca's other abilities, and thirdly because it's an enjoyable mechanic from the base game.

Number of mountains and how they are structured changes dramatically between mapscrips and games.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to remove the mountain-power from Inca, I'm trying to turn their hill-bias (which is what they actually have, since mountains can't be scripted for bias) into a decent game, and actual mountain-access into a great game, no matter how the mountains are formed.

What it's worth noting is that one can only balance for what is usually the case, not what may theoretically be or not be the case. England shouldn't be rebalanced because when land locked they do not get access to their unique unit. The Inca should not be reblanced because occasionally they get very few hills. Both should be balanced around what is typically the case.

Absolutely, but England does fairly well landlocked because their UB still adds fair power to them. and also Ocean-bias is a thing, while mountain-bias isn't.
Sure England is going to do worse while land-locked, but they still have power, they can fight their way to the coast, get one harbor going and still conquer coastal-cities with their UU for example.

Example that happened to me last week: I loaded in as Venice, alone on a continent with no city states and no other civilisations. I had no one to send trade routes to. This doesn't call for a rewrite of Venice, it calls for a new game.

I was trying to change Venice for exact this reason, they just get screwed way too easily by mapquirks.
While you certainly can reroll if you get a garbage-position, the AI can't which makes the situation a bit more serious.

 

[void_genesis]

How about dropping the mountain requirement, and instead link the terrace farm to the UA with city connections through hills. You could make terrace farms that are on a city connection tile give an extra yield (gold? culture? tourism in the future?). Would this be similar to Arabia so the code is already tested?

 

[Funak]

How about dropping the mountain requirement, and instead link the terrace farm to the UA with city connections through hills. You could make terrace farms that are on a city connection tile give an extra yield (gold? culture? tourism in the future?). Would this be similar to Arabia so the code is already tested?

But mountain-bonuses makes sense, I mean that's why it is a terrace.
What did you think of my 'if adjacent to mountain' bonus suggestion?

 

[PurpleMentat]

I like the idea of making the mountain bonus for a terrace farm large and non-stacking. Easier to balance all scenarios, and ensure it's useful in a wider range of map configurations. You could then expand the radius it looks for a mountain, or let a city with a mountain give the mountain bonus to all terrace farms once it has constructed an aqueduct. The idea here is the 'bonus' terrace farm should be the norm. With careful planning, the player should be able to settle such that they are getting that bonus in most of their terrace farms.

 

[Funak]

I like the idea of making the mountain bonus for a terrace farm large and non-stacking. Easier to balance all scenarios, and ensure it's useful in a wider range of map configurations. You could then expand the radius it looks for a mountain, or let a city with a mountain give the mountain bonus to all terrace farms once it has constructed an aqueduct. The idea here is the 'bonus' terrace farm should be the norm. With careful planning, the player should be able to settle such that they are getting that bonus in most of their terrace farms.

Or you could have the non-bonus be the norm. let it be a slightly better than an average farm-tile and then letting it be a lot better than a farm tile if adjacent to a mountain. Either works.
The thing with the aqueduct that I don't like is that I still think mountains should actually matter, otherwise the UI just becomes a no-brainer on every hill.
In my world you would sometimes want to build a farm instead of a terrace-farm on a hill with no adjacent mountain. A farm would probably be better if you could get 4 other adjacent farms (or something like that).

 

[void_genesis]

How about this? Each terrace farm around a city gains +1 food for every mountain within three tiles of the city (adjust values to balance). This should be self balancing since the more mountains you have, the less positions for building terrace farms. It would make cities viable in mountain choked locations as you would get a small number of super farms to support a decent population. You could tone it down and add a city yield per number of mountains within range to the UA as well to make it more diverse.

 

[Funak]

How about this? Each terrace farm around a city gains +1 food for every mountain within three tiles of the city (adjust values to balance). This should be self balancing since the more mountains you have, the less positions for building terrace farms. It would make cities viable in mountain choked locations as you would get a small number of super farms to support a decent population. You could tone it down and add a city yield per number of mountains within range to the UA as well to make it more diverse.

Sounds kinda weird. I was thinking of an observatory-like thing where the city gets food for every mountain in range for a Incan building if that '3/4 UC' project is ever finished however.

 

[void_genesis]

Wouldn't it be an interesting balance though? A city with only one mountain would get +1 food on lots of terrace farms where they have hills. A city with eight of mountains will get a smaller number of terrace farms with super yields to make settling mountains viable. One food per mountain is probably way too high, one food per terrace farm per two mountains within 3 tiles would probably work. If that is too high maybe drop it to mountains within two tiles (this would be interesting for city placement to try and minimise the number of uncounted mountains between cities).

 

[Gazebo]

Just as a rule, improvements need 'plot-based functionality' for the sake of DLL efficiency. Area checks (like the observatory one) are expensive.

G

 

[Llednar Twem]

I have yet to come up with a more practical idea than my last one, unfortunately. That said, you never did say whether or not my idea was do-able Gazebo. Not full two-way adjacency between farms and terrace farms, but my other idea to just have terrace farms buff surrounding lowland farms. I still think it would be neat if possible since a system of mountains ringed by terrace farms ringed by lowland farms would be unique from both an aesthetic and mechanical standpoint.

They already look for adjacent mountains and get +1 food from them, so could you add an effect where they look for adjacent farms and give +1 food to them? I guess it wouldn't work if you can't give yield to adjacent tiles, only get them from adjacent tiles. That sounds like something that could potentially be a problem in programming.

 

[Gazebo]

I have yet to come up with a more practical idea than my last one, unfortunately. That said, you never did say whether or not my idea was do-able Gazebo. Not full two-way adjacency between farms and terrace farms, but my other idea to just have terrace farms buff surrounding lowland farms. I still think it would be neat if possible since a system of mountains ringed by terrace farms ringed by lowland farms would be unique from both an aesthetic and mechanical standpoint.

They already look for adjacent mountains and get +1 food from them, so could you add an effect where they look for adjacent farms and give +1 food to them? I guess it wouldn't work if you can't give yield to adjacent tiles, only get them from adjacent tiles. That sounds like something that could potentially be a problem in programming.

It gets expensive, and I'm reluctant to pursue it, as mountains are static entities, whereas improvements are not. That means a refresh every turn, which gets expensive in terms of raw calculations. Ideally, we continue to stick with the existing XML elements which, though not the most exciting, are functional and relatively cheap.

G

 

[Llednar Twem]

Ah, that's unfortunate but I guess it's understandable.

 

[Funak]

It gets expensive, and I'm reluctant to pursue it, as mountains are static entities, whereas improvements are not. That means a refresh every turn, which gets expensive in terms of raw calculations. Ideally, we continue to stick with the existing XML elements which, though not the most exciting, are functional and relatively cheap.

I kinda just assumed this, and should probably ask if it actually works first.
Is it possible to give the terrace farm a bonus when adjacent to a mountain instead of getting a bonus for every mountain?

 

[Gazebo]

I kinda just assumed this, and should probably ask if it actually works first.
Is it possible to give the terrace farm a bonus when adjacent to a mountain instead of getting a bonus for every mountain?

What's the difference? Or rather, what's the end goal of that?

G

 

[Funak]

What's the difference? Or rather, what's the end goal of that?

The difference is that you would not get multiple bonuses with more adjacent mountains.

The goal would be creating a strong enough base-improvement that is actually comparable to normal farms/hills on most tiles, then giving it a large enough bonus from being adjacent to a mountain that it turns into a really good tile. All this without having to worry about crazy 5 or 6 adjacent mountain situations creating overpowered monster-tiles.
The goal was to make the UI a little less RNG and map-luck dependent by cutting out the need for mountain-ranges, making 1 tile mountains effective as well.

 

[Cerest]

The difference is that you would not get multiple bonuses with more adjacent mountains.

The goal would be creating a strong enough base-improvement that is actually comparable to normal farms/hills on most tiles, then giving it a large enough bonus from being adjacent to a mountain that it turns into a really good tile. All this without having to worry about crazy 5 or 6 adjacent mountain situations creating overpowered monster-tiles.
The goal was to make the UI a little less RNG and map-luck dependent by cutting out the need for mountain-ranges, making 1 tile mountains effective as well.

I feel like few mountains with a bunch of hills versus a bunch of mountains with a few hills are equivalent to the Inca, due to the terrace farm adjacency bonuses and the stackable mountain bonus. No reason to change.

 

[Funak]

I feel like few mountains with a bunch of hills versus a bunch of mountains with a few hills are equivalent to the Inca, due to the terrace farm adjacency bonuses and the stackable mountain bonus. No reason to change.

Well, imho those extreme situations are what's holding the Terrace farm back, non-extreme situations can't get the proper benefit because of that once in a blue moon 6 adjacent mountain terrace-farm would become too powerful.

I'll give an example of my idea I suppose, might make it easier to visualize.
Base Terrace-farm on a hill with no mountains nearby would provide +2 food +1 hammer +1 culture, counting the hill base-yield it would land on a 2food 3 hammer 1 culture.
A Terrace-farm next to a mountain would get an extra 2 food and 2 culture turning the tile into a 4 food 3 hammer 3 culture tile(might be somewhat overtuned, but this was just an example) any additional nearby mountain wouldn't make it any stronger.

This leaves the tech-tree open to have more terrace-farm boosts (I mean currently most UIs get plus 4 yields from techs, terrace farm gets +1 food from fertilizer)

 

[Cerest]

Well, imho those extreme situations are what's holding the Terrace farm back, non-extreme situations can't get the proper benefit because of that once in a blue moon 6 adjacent mountain terrace-farm would become too powerful.

I'll give an example of my idea I suppose, might make it easier to visualize.
Base Terrace-farm on a hill with no mountains nearby would provide +2 food +1 hammer +1 culture, counting the hill base-yield it would land on a 2food 3 hammer 1 culture.
A Terrace-farm next to a mountain would get an extra 2 food and 2 culture turning the tile into a 4 food 3 hammer 3 culture tile(might be somewhat overtuned, but this was just an example) any additional nearby mountain wouldn't make it any stronger.

This leaves the tech-tree open to have more terrace-farm boosts (I mean currently most UIs get plus 4 yields from techs, terrace farm gets +1 food from fertilizer)

I totally agree on the tech-tree thing... The per mountain per adjacent terrace farm is one of the things that make it scaleable. So unless the tech tree gives it consistent bonuses then it's like blah D: