nerfing financial

Fin is powerful, but not overpowered. Its benefit is just obvious and easy to take advantage.

And I'm a bit sick of people keep saying nerf this nerf that whenever something is stronger. If it doesn't break the game, then keep it. When I have a bad day I pull out Liz or Wilem to have some fun, still I may get rushed by those lowly leaders like Montzy or Toku before I get my advanced army in almost 1 out of 3 or 4 games.
 
Well, it makes sense to look for the closest thing to perfect balance.

There are plenty of ways to win easily when you have a bad day, such as playing at a lower difficulty, or asking your WorldBuilder buddy =)
 
Well, it makes sense to look for the closest thing to perfect balance.

There are plenty of ways to win easily when you have a bad day, such as playing at a lower difficulty, or asking your WorldBuilder buddy =)

It's nice to have game balance, but to certain people the balance they seek could actually mean uniformity. Financial makes too much money? Make them earn less. But why do I pick finanical to start with? I want a leader that doesn't have to struggle with revenue. It's like I watched the old day Chicago Bulls because I wanted to see Michael Jordan flying. If the NBA office limited his playing time per game to achieve "balance" then this is not the Chicago Bulls I was so thrilled to watch anymore.

Lower difficulty and WB are never legitimate options, you know it.
 
Well, you want more money so you get Financial, that makes sense. However, by that logic, Financial could give +5 and still be ok. And we know it's obvious that's not the case. There needs to be balance, so that no trait is always much better than another.

I really don't see why lower difficulty is not a legitimate option. As for the World Builder or any other cheat/exploit, i don't see the problem. You say you're ready to play with a trait that's obviously stronger than another. So why not give you other advantages?
 
I agree with Percy completely. i want all the traits to be balanced in strength, but hell no on trying to make the traits so weak and create uniformity.

I think the traits as of now aren't too weak, enough so to make me change my game plan depending on the leader i play - just the way i like to.

However, at least in my opinion, the financial trait is the most powerful of all the traits. Moreover, it doesn't force me to change my game plan - Industrial makes me build more wonders, spiritual makes me try for early religion and change civics frequently, charismatic makes me more of a warmonger - that's a change.
For example, had the financial trait been changed to "+1 on +2 tiles only when player is not at war" - that would cause a huge change in my gameplay, and to me , that's what it's all about.

i think that some other traits require strengthening (like expansive) and some nerfing, and being brave enough to tweak them from time to time is what forces us to adapt and understand different game mechanics we didn't before.
 
You *want* to change civic frequently anyway. It's more like the lack of spiritual makes
you not change civics frequently

Moreover, it doesn't force me to change my game plan - Industrial makes me build more wonders, spiritual makes me try for early religion and change civics frequently, charismatic makes me more of a warmonger - that's a change.
 
sorry, i miscalculated on my comparison of organized to financial water tiles. civics will cost u more than 1 $$ for a city size 10.

besides estimating on experience, i don't know what's the formulas for civic costs, so if anyone knows, i'd be happy if he shares.

I didn't pull those numbers that I used out of thin air. I co-authored an article on civic upkeep cost when this game was still fairly new. You can find it in the War Academy under the Game Mechanics section. However, the formula is a bit complicated and thus the article is a bit technical.

A very basic formula would be 2 + 0.5 * N where N is the city size. You pay 80% of that value on noble and 100% on deity. This formula is of course far too rough as the cost depends on which civics you use. But for a basic comparison with the financial trait it suffices.

There is a sort of discount so that the first city and population points don't cost upkeep, so the civic costs are 0 at the start of the game and only start to rise after some expansion.
 
Well, you want more money so you get Financial, that makes sense. However, by that logic, Financial could give +5 and still be ok. And we know it's obvious that's not the case. There needs to be balance, so that no trait is always much better than another.

I really don't see why lower difficulty is not a legitimate option. As for the World Builder or any other cheat/exploit, i don't see the problem. You say you're ready to play with a trait that's obviously stronger than another. So why not give you other advantages?

The problem is Fin is simply not "much better than another". There were a number of polls on this forum and other civ boards asking which trait was best and Fin did not win by overwhelmingly large margin, so obviously the majority of players actually see the good in other traits. Fin only makes you worry less about money, although worrying about money is probably the biggest problem in the game so a lot of people find Fin handy, but it's not that much better than other traits and your +5 analogy is a big stretch.

So if Fin is like Michael Jordan, it's not like other traits are crxppy players. They may be Hakeem Olajowon, Charles Barkley or Karl Malone. As long as each one can put up a fight on another one and a lesser trait can still win on another given game, I don't think a perfect balance is necessary. In fact, this balance may never be reached.

Playing down one level is a big thing, the gap between two levels is much bigger than the gap between two different traits. Pulling out world builder is not an option for non-experimental games. The fun of playing a game is based on what you are given (known traits, known UU and UB), you go for an unknown adventure. WB gives you too much power and temptation to remove that limitation, and no limitation means no excitement.
 
The problem is Fin is simply not "much better than another".
Ah, but you were saying that you wanted some traits to be better than others so that you could, basically, crush the opposition easily when you had a bad day ^^
I was answering on the reasoning, more than on the actual strength of the present implementation of the Financial trait.

but it's not that much better than other traits and your +5 analogy is a big stretch.
My +5 was only to address a point you made, namely that traits didn't need to be balanced because you wanted to be able to get an advantage when you felt like it.

As long as each one can put up a fight on another one and a lesser trait can still win on another given game, I don't think a perfect balance is necessary. In fact, this balance may never be reached.
We're back to the point: why shouldn't we _try_ to reach perfect balance? What is the inherent interest of deliberately not trying to balance traits? You were saying the interest is to make things easier for the player when the player feels like it. So in that case, my previous "stretch" still holds: why not considering giving you a much bigger advantage, since you're looking for easy play rather than balanced play?

Playing down one level is a big thing, the gap between two levels is much bigger than the gap between two different traits.
Some would argue that the gap is much less than the one between Fin+Phi and Imp+Pro =P

Pulling out world builder is not an option for non-experimental games. The fun of playing a game is based on what you are given (known traits, known UU and UB), you go for an unknown adventure. WB gives you too much power and temptation to remove that limitation, and no limitation means no excitement.
Well, when using the WB, you don't HAVE to look at other locations. And, once again, the fun in SP is what you decide it is. It seems obvious that for MP, traits have to be balanced, otherwise, 1) some players get screwed and/or 2) everyone always picks the same leaders, which is boring. If you accept the idea that, in SP, you can have traits that are better than the rest of the AI, then i see no difference with lowering the difficulty and/or using the WB. In every case, you are getting an "unbalanced" advantage.

BTW, i love the Cho-Ku-Nu sig =D
 
I explained for more then 2 years that financial is not as strong as some think.
It is just a trait that beginners find to be easiest to exploite, that all.
AI, especially Pre BTS was a biggers beneficiary of financial trait, because of same reason and AI city grow bonuses.

Making financial to work on 3 commerce will make it entirelly useless.

Now, when people learn to exploite other traits only Nobble-monarch level players continue count financial as a strongest trat.
 
sorry Mutinner, i play on deity and still find financial to be the best trait.
can u post a link to ur article so i can read the math?

I'd rather we reach a mathematic conclusion on the hierarchy of strengths of the economic traits (fin/org/phi) rather than debate on thin air.
the hierarchy may very well change for monarch/emperor/immortal/deity.
It will definently change depending on the era - which means that an early rusher will prefer the best advantage early on, and the space player will maybe prefer the best advantage late in the game.

Note - I think we can all agree that playing a leader without any of these traits on deity is pretty much impossible? so these 3 are top traits.
 
Lets keep the difficulty level people play at out of this discussion. An opinion is not more worthy because you play at a higher difficulty level. If you back up your opinion with good argumentation, then there is a real reason to consider an opinion.

By the way, the difficulty level can of course slightly shift the value of various traits. An example would be that the civic upkeep costs are higher at higher difficulty levels and thus the organised trait saves you more money at higher levels. The difference is not huge, but it is there. That's why I mentioned deity and noble difficulty levels when I compared the financial benefits of organised and financial some posts back.

edit: Oh, and I agree with Vale that charismatic is another very strong trait. However, it has lost quite a lot of its value now that the difficulty level doesn't effect the starting happiness value anymore (except on chieftain and settler levels). The low starting happiness on the highest levels was a serious problem and charismatic solved part of that problem making it a strong trait on high difficulty levels. It was one of my favourite traits, but it has dropped back quite a bit since the new handicap files came with BTS.
 
I agree that charismatic is a strong trait, stronger than agressive and in my opinion the 4th strongest trait (after the economic ones).
I don't think by any strech of imagination it's stronger than any of the economic traits.

Let's look at it - Financially - It gives u +1 happiness early on , +1 additional happiness if u invest 30 production on monument.
Extremely advantageous early on, power diminishes greatly as the game progresses.
Early on, it means +1 pop in all ur cities. not enough workers/improvements to back them up though.
On emperor/immortal/deity u pretty much have to go rushing, so stoneage/4 monuments = 4 axemans, i vote for axeman, with the exception of the capital.
so to conclude - +1 pop in all ur cities, +2 in capital - not bad at all, tiles are unimproved though.
Best advantage of +2 pop at around 1000 BC - 1AD - from the time improvements are finished till u gain HR/calender/trade with other for happiness.

Militarily - we'll compare non charismatic to charismatic leader.
early on - relevant upgrades are mainly - CR1, CR2, CR3 - tha'ts 3 upgrades. 2/4/8 for charismatic, 3/5/10 for rest.
with no barracks - exp 0 - no upgrades in both cases
with barracks - exp 3 - one upgrade in both cases
with barracks+military advisor - exp 5 - 2 upgrades in both cases.
main difference - 10 compared to 8 which is nice but not much more than that.
later on the chrismatic still helps with improvements, but to the extent of 1-2 military advisors which is nice but not overpowered cause those 3 CR upgrades are by far the most important. (so important that people prefer to produce maceman with 3 CR and pay 110 gold to upgrade to rifleman)

a very nice combo trait, but i think a leader with charismatic but without fin/phi/org will not make it far on high difficulty.
I do agree that Hannibal is top 5 along with Darius/Elizabeth (leaders with 2 economic traits).
 
I don't like financial not because of its power (or lack thereof) but because it forces us players to pursue specific tile use, limiting our optimum choices. It's the only trait that does.

I'd like to see the entire +x commerce on y tile go and instead a trait that halves tax buildings cost.
 
I agree with Roland Johansen completely on the fact that charismatic already got nerfed now that happiness isn't such a huge problem on high difficulty levels.

I'm unsure i agree with u about leaving out the difficulty level - i'll definently try, but in some cases its important - For example, industrial really loses its strength for higher diff level, and on low difficulty protective/imperialistic might be quite good

For me, high difficulty level forced me to shift my chosen traits to traits that mostly benefit the early game at the expense of late eras. Maybe it caused a different shift in other players. that's why it's important to break the hierarchy of strengths of fin/phi/org to eras.
 
ok... i won't say impossible, just harder.
which leader with no economic traits would u choose?
 
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