List of suggestions about mid-late game

[hi2006]

Hi. I ran a few games on default settings, large-size maps, flexible difficulty (both AI and player), Terra maps. The early game is very smooth, but the late game has a few issues that I dislike.

1. There is no way that my planet-spanning empires can get passed "Dangerously unstable (Flat)." For example,

   Good: Golden Age, Financial stability, Cult. Spending, Great Firewall, Virtual, Paradise, Unmanned Warfare, Federation, Secular, Post-scarcity, Porcelain Tower, Liberal
   Bad: Gigantic Empire

   And yet my empire stability is dangerously unstable and constantly revolting. 100% culture spending doesn't help either.
   • In the late game, Republic seems to be the best civic, since number-of-cities maintenance cost is locked at 100 (Deity) anyway, and Democracy's & Federation's special buildings are replaced by Voting Links.
   • I think Federation should boost more national stability. Maybe a boost the provincial hall with bonus national stability, so that the bonus scales linearly?
2. I think maintenance cost should be re-balanced. Given the financial stability bonus of avoiding money printing, I would rather prefer to stay at low maintenance than building buildings that cost more . Beside, the cost of buildings is already quite high.
   • For example, I never build mid-game buildings, like Sewers and Water Treatment Plants. A few isn't worth 20 (number-of-cities due to Deity) when most of my cities are already having 10+ during the Industrial Revolution.
     • As an aside, I found Personal Rapid Train to be useless, because it only gives 1 more at twice the cost of Public Transportation.
   • Similarly, I don't build the Village Hall line of buildings in the mid game, because at the point maintenance cost more than the "free" specialist.
   • I suggest to remove the maintenance penalties from these buildings, and to nerf the courthouse & telephone lines of buildings.
3. I found late game hostile corporation takeover very micro-intensive, because I have to constantly build new corporate buildings to reap full benefit, and the old ones that got replaced no longer function. Looking up and building for 100+ cities isn't fun. It would be great if corporations provide their special buildings' bonuses directly.
4. I think brainwashed, no- cities (with Mind-Control Center, Globe Theatre) shouldn't revolt, and yet they do revolt constantly in my unstable empire.
5. Regulated civic (under Economy) doesn't seem to provide as the descriptions say. I have to turn my people into tree-huggers in order to fight their rebellious spirits due to .
6. Sometimes upon reloading games, not all resource labels show up on the map. Restarting the game seems to fix that.
7. Some early quests that require building on 10+ cities on large maps are too harsh, because empire size and maintenance would cause huge revolts.
8. Late-game buildings are waste of , because both Superhuman and Paradise already negate . I only build them after I have nothing else to build and have a sizable force.
9. Wonders that provide free buildings to all cities don't grant to cities that aren't my civ's culture. For example, as Persia, building the Supreme Court doesn't grant a Satrap/Courthouse in a city that was built by, say, the French.
10. I wish Pioneers can be upgraded further after the Industrial age, because colonizing in later ages is quite difficult, especially if I run Post-scarcity and can't buy buildings with .
11. It would be great if I can tell my workers to replace Lumbermills and Orchards with Forest Preserve instead of locking out the option to do so. Right now I have to pillage the tile with a military unit and then rebuild a Forest Preserve.
12. It seems that turning "Turn On Avoid Unhealthy Citizen" doesn't stop the city from growing. Unhealthy citizens contribute a lot to rebellions and I can't avoid them automatically.
13. I found that colonizing the New World is too tough because these cities have rebellious penalty "Colony" on top of being located in a "Distant Location". Also, the reward of colonizing isn't great because you don't get trade income automatically like in vanilla.
14. It would be great to have events that prevent nuclear meltdowns from buildings. From a player perspective, I would rather spend with one click than to re-queue the buildings.

 

[<Nexus>]

• I think brainwashed, no- cities (with Mind-Control Center, Globe Theatre) shouldn't revolt, and yet they do revolt constantly in my unstable empire.

Think of it as an RPG feature: Some are immune to mind-control and rebel. Remember the Matrix

• Sometimes upon reloading games, not all resource labels show up on the map. Restarting the game seems to fix that.

That's an old bug - maybe from Vanilla Civ4?
Just zoom out and select: All Resources.

• Some early quests that require building on 10+ cities on large maps are too harsh, because empire size and maintenance would cause huge revolts.

Agree.

• Wonders that provide free buildings to all cities don't grant to cities that aren't my civ's culture. For example, as Persia, building the Supreme Court doesn't grant a Satrap/Courthouse in a city that was built by, say, the French.

That's also a known bug. 45 promised to try to fix it but apparently he had no time/solution.

 

[Vokarya]

I can add a stability bonus to the Mind-Control Center. I think it would be appropriate there. I don't want to remove revolution from other cities just because they have no unhappiness. There are many other elements that could play into a revolution.

I do not want to change nuclear meltdowns. There are only 3 buildings that can generate meltdowns: Nuclear Plant, Warhead Factory, and Utility Fog. Nuclear Plant goes away once you replace it with a safer power plant. Warhead Factory's meltdown chance is part of the risk you have to accept if you want to be able to build nuclear weapons. We want nukes to be a risk just to build them. Utility Fog is the Transhuman equivalent of the Nuclear Plant; free-roaming nanobots have the possibility of going totally wild.

Quests could use some looking at. The problem is they are generally tied to the default number of players for the map size, which is inflated compared to BTS starting at Small. That's not always good.

 

[hi2006]

Think of it as an RPG feature: Some are immune to mind-control and rebel. Remember the Matrix

Yeah, that's true.

I don't want to remove revolution from other cities just because they have no unhappiness.

I'm fine that cities revolt. It's a nice feature that I enjoy very much. It's just I got frustrated to see rebellions every 10-20 turns even though I have grabbed most of the positive modifiers, if not all. Going through a super-long 100+ turns golden age (Mausoleum + Reichstag + Ascension Gate then Technological Capital) doesn't help either. There's a point in game when your empire becomes too gigantic that stability goes down the drain no matter what you do.

There are only 3 buildings that can generate meltdowns: Nuclear Plant, Warhead Factory, and Utility Fog.

I don't mind if these buildings can cause meltdowns, nor the fallout to the terrains. It's just in the late game, queuing up buildings is pretty laggy, and I don't trust the AI to auto build stuffs in the "correct" order. Fallout, on the other hand, is *less* devastating, since all improvements are pretty competitive and I don't mind automating workers at that point. Besides city management, I also have to spend lots of time to deal with my doom stacks. Any means to avoid the clunky UI in the late game is a plus. That is also why I am indifferent about building corporate buildings when playing with "realistic corporation" --- it just takes too much time to deal with the UI because corporations "flow" around.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm fine that cities revolt. It's a nice feature that I enjoy very much. It's just I got frustrated to see rebellions every 10-20 turns even though I have grabbed most of the positive modifiers, if not all. Going through a super-long 100+ turns golden age (Mausoleum + Reichstag + Ascension Gate then Technological Capital) doesn't help either. There's a point in game when your empire becomes too gigantic that stability goes down the drain no matter what you do.

I think I need to see a save game. The impression I'm getting is that you have an extreme case going on and that is something I would need to really analyze.

The other thing you can try is turning down the extra Revolution penalty on the human player. Under the BUG menu (Ctrl-Alt-O), RevDCM tab, at the bottom, is a Revolution Difficulty drop-down for the human player only. If it's not set at 0, you can turn that down to 0.

 

[hi2006]

I think I need to see a save game. The impression I'm getting is that you have an extreme case going on and that is something I would need to really analyze.

Sure. It was a very fun game. The game roughly went as follows.

In the early game (4000BC to around 200AD), I managed to steamroll Khmer, who declared war on me and charged their archers against my immortals. Right after my complete conquest of Khmer, England and Arabia declared on me and I managed to churn lots of highly promoted troops, thanks to being imperialistic and charismatic and has the Great Wall. I didn't take any land from the English because my empire was already over extended, instead I ran a spy economy against England to catch up on techs. At that point, I was only ahead on military tech, and I managed to grab the Blarney Castle --- you know how smooth the catch up game went. I didn't peace out Arabia, though, because they were not Buddhist (main religion in the game). I went for full conquest. I only kept the parts that are next to my borders and Medina, which was the Jewish holy city; the rest were given away to reduce over expansion. Being surround by friendly Buddhist neighbors, the game was pretty much decided at this point.

Then I spent about a thousand years to rebuild my HUGE empire. It was around 1600AD that I got Rifling and I resumed conquest. The empire stability was bouncing between "unstable" and "neutral," but the local stability of every city was "safe" for the most time.

Then around late 1800AD, my GIANT empire became a GIGANTIC one and it couldn't keep up on stability.

 

[Vokarya]

There is one thing you can try, and that is bigger garrisons. One unit is not an adequate garrison with Revolutions on. It doesn't matter what units you use, as long as they are land units. The Python function used is getNumDefenders, which I don't think counts naval or air units.

Look at Philadelphia. I played a couple turns with your save and its RevIndex dropped, and I think it was due to the large garrison force there. Garrisons can reduce the revIndex by up to 20 if they are big enough. If you want to do it with fewer units, use Patrol promotions. A unit that has Patrol I-II-III doubles the effect of its garrison.

Yours is definitely an extreme case. Extreme cases are not supposed to be easy, but they are not supposed to be impossible either. This is worth looking into even more.

 

[hi2006]

Look at Philadelphia. I played a couple turns with your save and its RevIndex dropped, and I think it was due to the large garrison force there. Garrisons can reduce the revIndex by up to 20 if they are big enough. If you want to do it with fewer units, use Patrol promotions. A unit that has Patrol I-II-III doubles the effect of its garrison.

I checked the revolution cheat menu. It seems like all cities in the Old World change the RevIndex by -9 (usually cities with a few garrisons, or Park Arcology got bombed due to meltdown) to -30 (cities with lots of garrisons -- you are right about the 20 bonus points) each turn. Only cities in the New World want to bump up the RevIndex, mostly due to being "colonies" and having strong nationalism. While cities are trying their best to reduce their RevIndex, national rebellion events keep popping up which bump up the RevIndex at a faster pace than their effort to lower it, probably due to having low empire stability.

As for my extreme case, the problem is that the game offers way to few positive empire stability modifiers than bad ones from steamrolling others (namely just Gigantic Empire). I use the world builder to erase most of my cities and empire stability rise again. World conquest can still be achievable, since I can bribe my way to the end while running 100% tech/culture, but it breaks "immersion" since I spent lots of effort trying to stabilize these cities; otherwise I could've done world conquest at a much faster pace. This is mostly my guess. It would be nice if there's a cheat menu that shows how empire stability is calculated, like the local stability one.

 

[Vokarya]

Regarding Quests: Is it just the "build X buildings" quests that are a problem? I looked at all the quests and they break down into three groups: quests that don't scale, like Hostile Takeover which only requires you to secure one copy of each resource for a corporation; quests that require you to build X units of a certain type; and quests that require you to build X buildings of a certain type, which is limited by the number of cities you have. If it's just the building quests, I am willing to discuss toning those down somewhat.

 

[Urza1234]

Yah, pretty sure only "Build x buildings" quests are the issue.

 

[hi2006]

I think so, especially the ones in the classical age, like build arenas, libraries and forges.

 

[Vokarya]

Then these are the quests that need touching up. In all cases, X is currently the default number of players for the world size. Upgrades of buildings count here. The Python code used checks for that.

• Horse Whispering: Build X Stables.
• Classic Literature: Build X Libraries.
• Master Blacksmith: Build X Forges.
• National Sports League: Build X Arenas.
  
• Best Defense: Build X Castles.
  
• Harbormaster: Build X Seaports. I'm changing this from the current AND code that just requires Ports. I don't want the quest to be too easy to complete.
  
• Alternative Energy: Build X Nuclear Plants.

Slightly related:

• Blessed Sea requires you to build cities on X landmasses. This is toned down from default BTS; the BTS code requires building cities on 1.5x the default number of players separate landmasses.
• Holy Mountain requires you to build 2X points worth of buildings of your state religion, with Monasteries and Temples counting as 1 point each and Cathedrals/Pantheons counting as 4.

How many cities do you generally have when the quest triggers? I think the appropriate numbers of buildings would be two-thirds the default number of players, minimum 2. So on a Standard map, that would mean 6 Forges or Libraries to complete the quest. On a Duel or Tiny map, you only need 2. On a Gigantic map with 25 default players, you would need 17. Alternative Energy is the one that I think you have enough time to expand to get to the full default, but maybe Best Defense as well.

Holy Mountain's requirement isn't really as steep. To reveal the Holy Mountain plot, you can do it with about 2/3rds the default number of cities if you build as many Cathedrals as you can. On a Standard map, 6 cities with a Temple and Monastery each and the 2 Cathedrals allowed will clear the points requirement.

Blessed Sea on the other hand could still stand to come down. I think the two-thirds adjustment would be good here.

 

[<Nexus>]

I think there is a major problem with those quests: They all encourage large empires but the AI often struggles with that. It would be better if small empires were competitive too.
I suggest changing the "Build X Buildings" rule to "Build X/2 BuildingA and X/2 BuildingB" (or could further reduce it from X/2 to X/3) so you still build the same amount of buildings just in fewer cities.
Just need to find out a second building for every quest:

• Classic Literature: Build Libraries and Theaters.
• Master Blacksmith: Build Forges and Armorers.
• National Sports League: Build X Arenas Stadiums and Broadcast Towers.
  
• Harbormaster: Build Seaports and Lighthouses.

• Best Defense: Can it check for number of improvements too? Than it could be Build Castles and Forts.
• Horse Whispering: Can it check for number of resources too? Than it could be Build X/2 Stables and obtain X/4 Horses (owned or through trade)
• Alternative Energy: Same as Horse Whispering: Build X/2 Nuclear Plants and obtain X/4 Uranium (owned or through trade)

• Blessed Sea should be just X coastal cities with the addition of X/3 cities on other landmasses. This current quest encourages the building of an empire that is destined to fall soon, especially with Revolutions on.

 

[Vokarya]

Some good ideas here, but I would have to look into the Python. CyPlayer has countOwnedBonuses and getImprovementCount, so I think those are possible.

Classic Literature and Master Blacksmith are good. Harbormaster not so much; the problem is you may already have the required number of Lighthouses by the time the quest trigger can occur. What if we flip the Seaport requirement and the Caravel requirement? It's currently X Seaports and (X/2)+1 Caravels. If we flip it around a bit, then you have to build (X/2) Seaports and X+1 Caravels.

Moving up National Sports League leads it to clash with the National Sports League national wonder. I think it would be preferable to keep it tied to Arenas.

I also wouldn't want to mess too much with Alternative Energy. It's not about nuclear power, it's about clean power. Maybe a staggered scale: Nuclear Plants count 1, Hydro Plants count 2, Solar Plants count 3 and then you have to total up X points?

Blessed Sea can be done the way you are suggesting.

 

[<Nexus>]

Classic Literature and Master Blacksmith are good. Harbormaster not so much; the problem is you may already have the required number of Lighthouses by the time the quest trigger can occur. What if we flip the Seaport requirement and the Caravel requirement? It's currently X Seaports and (X/2)+1 Caravels. If we flip it around a bit, then you have to build (X/2) Seaports and X+1 Caravels.

Sounds good.

Moving up National Sports League leads it to clash with the National Sports League national wonder. I think it would be preferable to keep it tied to Arenas.

Or rename the event?

I also wouldn't want to mess too much with Alternative Energy. It's not about nuclear power, it's about clean power. Maybe a staggered scale: Nuclear Plants count 1, Hydro Plants count 2, Solar Plants count 3 and then you have to total up X points?

Wow! Excellent!

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

I think there is a major problem with those quests: They all encourage large empires but the AI often struggles with that. It would be better if small empires were competitive too.
I suggest changing the "Build X Buildings" rule to "Build X/2 BuildingA and X/2 BuildingB" (or could further reduce it from X/2 to X/3) so you still build the same amount of buildings just in fewer cities.
Just need to find out a second building for every quest:

• Classic Literature: Build Libraries and Theaters.
• Master Blacksmith: Build Forges and Armorers.
• National Sports League: Build X Arenas Stadiums and Broadcast Towers.
  
• Harbormaster: Build Seaports and Lighthouses.

• Best Defense: Can it check for number of improvements too? Than it could be Build Castles and Forts.
• Horse Whispering: Can it check for number of resources too? Than it could be Build X/2 Stables and obtain X/4 Horses (owned or through trade)
• Alternative Energy: Same as Horse Whispering: Build X/2 Nuclear Plants and obtain X/4 Uranium (owned or through trade)

• Blessed Sea should be just X coastal cities with the addition of X/3 cities on other landmasses. This current quest encourages the building of an empire that is destined to fall soon, especially with Revolutions on.

Really important notice. Please rework the quests. With revolution it's hard to get get 10 cities just for doing a quest in early game. Revolution doesn't really care about the map size, so quests should work the same.

Set up a fixed number or cap the mapsize-dependency at standard size.

 

[nionios]

It would be great if I can tell my workers to replace Lumbermills and Orchards with Forest Preserve instead of locking out the option to do so. Right now I have to pillage the tile with a military unit and then rebuild a Forest Preserve.It seems that turning "Turn On Avoid Unhealthy Citizen" doesn't stop the city from growing. Unhealthy citizens contribute a lot to rebellions and I can't avoid them automatically.

With latest rev 1071 update, you can build Forest Preserve without pillaging first.

The solution to stop city growing is to turn on "Avoid city growth".

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Avoiding unhappy citizens doens't work either, you have to use 'avoid city growth' bottom right of panel of city screen, not the Top 2 of 'avoid unhealth' and 'avoid unhappy citizens'

Health I can handle, its the malcontents I can't.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm doing work on the quests now. I noticed that Armourer requires Forge, so the combination won't work for Master Blacksmith. I think (X/2) Forges and (X/2) metal resources (Copper, Gold, Iron, Lead, Silver) would work.

The other thing I want to point out is that I won't be able to change any non-English game text, so those are going to be wrong until a translator can work on it.

 

[Vokarya]

Is 4 Horse sources too much to ask for the Horse Whispering quest on Giant/Gigantic maps? The minimum I want is 2. I just checked a few Duel-size maps and they all generated 3 Horse resources somewhere on the map. On a Gigantic map, I tested three times and I got one map with 19 Horse sources and two maps with 28 each.