New Beta Patch - 1/15

[Elite Spud]

Edit:
Wasnt able to make a fort here at a choke i wanted was wondering if this was intended for balancing or? (the fort on the side of the bannanas is where i ended up putting it but i wasnt able to put it directly ontop of them.)
cleared out the marsh under it and everything.

Aside from the standard improvement needed to improve a resource, only Great Person improvements and some unique improvements like Kasbah can be placed on top of resources. You'd need a citadel to cover the bananas.

 

[Vhozite]

Okay so I made some nerfs.

- Iron Fist no longer affects voluntary vassals; they still can't be liberated, but they can rebel if they want to
- Vassals now have special logic for the "Global Liberation" resolution
- Vassals can now sell world leader votes, like other civs
- Vassals no longer automatically support their masters for host/world leader
- Vassals no longer automatically support their masters when they propose the following resolutions:
  Sanctions
  Decolonization
  Sphere of Influence
  Open Door
  World Religion
  World Ideology
  Global Liberation
  Spaceship Limitation Whatchamacallit
  Passport System
- AI changes don't apply to resurrected vassals
- Good treatment makes a vassal more likely to support the master

This feels too far in the other direction to me. Personally the biggest reason take vassals in the extra diplo power. If they are making DV too easy then I think it’d be better make it so their votes don’t count for global hemogeny, or at least don’t automatically go for the master. Everything else is overkill imo...if vassals are going to end up being a huge pain diplomatically I’d rather just finish grinding them to dust.

Edit: Also could use some way to bully them into voting your way. A Civ should vote for almost whatever the master wants if they have troops surrounding their capital or are threatened with elimination.

 

[Recursive]

This feels too far in the other direction to me. Personally the biggest reason take vassals in the extra diplo power. If they are making DV too easy then I think it’d be better make it so their votes don’t count for global hemogeny, or at least don’t automatically go for the master. Everything else is overkill imo...if vassals are going to end up being a huge pain diplomatically I’d rather just finish grinding them to dust.

Edit: Also could use some way to bully them into voting your way. A Civ should vote for almost whatever the master wants if they have troops surrounding their capital or are threatened with elimination.

Easier to find a middle ground by testing two extremes than by making incremental changes. Gazebo's wisdom

Also, you retain diplo power if you treat them well. If you treat them poorly, that's a different story...

 

[azum4roll]

I think vassals should still vote for their master in Global Hegemony, just counted less. Any percentage from 20% to 50% looks fine to me.

 

[Stalker0]

This feels too far in the other direction to me. Personally the biggest reason take vassals in the extra diplo power. If they are making DV too easy then I think it’d be better make it so their votes don’t count for global hemogeny, or at least don’t automatically go for the master. Everything else is overkill imo...if vassals are going to end up being a huge pain diplomatically I’d rather just finish grinding them to dust.

Edit: Also could use some way to bully them into voting your way. A Civ should vote for almost whatever the master wants if they have troops surrounding their capital or are threatened with elimination.

The reason I am in favor of these changes is:

1) I didn't even know this was a thing (aka that vassals autosupported you in anything other than world leader/Wc host. Fewer exceptions are always good.

2) In my experience with the last 6 games, vassals will sell votes to you pretty cheap if you treat them well. So its still easy to get them supporting you, but its no longer automatic, that seems to me a good thing.

Now this does not have solve the hegemony problem, but I still think its a step in the right direction.

 

[azum4roll]

2) In my experience with the last 6 games, vassals will sell votes to you pretty cheap if you treat them well. So its still easy to get them supporting you, but its no longer automatic, that seems to me a good thing.

Really? I had to pay each of them 100-200GPT to get them to vote against sanctioning me last game.

 

[stii]

Really? I had to pay each of them 100-200GPT to get them to vote against sanctioning me last game.

Are you putting up vassal taxes on them? I've found my vassals offer me a DoF pretty quickly and then vote on my side. I've never had them vote to sanction me.

 

[BornDownUnder]

For vassal voting I think a good ground would be ~25% as it would be common knowledge for every living civilization that they are a vassal and who they are a vassal to.

If you don't treat a vassal well then perhaps the notion of a 'backstab' vote would be interesting in my opinion, it would have to carry the full voting weight though.

 

[azum4roll]

Are you putting up vassal taxes on them? I've found my vassals offer me a DoF pretty quickly and then vote on my side. I've never had them vote to sanction me.

I never tax my vassals. Everyone was friendly (or afraid). I guess I just had way too many of them (3), and was near victory in everything.

 

[Stalker0]

Really? I had to pay each of them 100-200GPT to get them to vote against sanctioning me last game.

So I find the trick is, if you have trouble convincing them to vote X (meaning they are likely to vote the other way), then have them commit votes to another proposal, that softens the blow. But that is rare, most of the time I only need 4 - 8 GPT to convince them to vote on something I like.

 

[Recursive]

1) I didn't even know this was a thing (aka that vassals autosupported you in anything other than world leader/Wc host. Fewer exceptions are always good.

Well it wasn't exactly autosupport but they got an unconditional +250 scoring bonus to your proposal and disregarded any negative opinion or treatment. No longer the case for the above resolutions.

I like the idea of bullying vassals with troops, @Vhozite, I'll see about implementing that.

Also I notice that vassals seem to pretty much never request independence so I will see about fixing that where appropriate...vassalage and gift related decision functions could use a look in general, IMO.

 

[Hinin]

I think vassals should still vote for their master in Global Hegemony, just counted less. Any percentage from 20% to 50% looks fine to me.

Maybe the portion of their vote they are willing to give for GH could depend on your relation with your vassal, counting on a number of factor :

• Are they voluntary vassals or not ?
  
• Did you treat them well ? What is your taxe level on them ? What is their level of population ?
• Did you defend them well during the last conflicts (modifier which depends on the amount of city damage they've taken recently) ?
• Usual diplomatic modifiers : trade, open borders, WC votes, past grievances etc

That could maybe require some additionnal work on the AI of the vassals, but may result in a more organic way of obtaining GH through vassals : you cannot expect civs you forcibly vassalized, taxed heavily and then treated as cannon fodders in a conflict to want to grant you more than the minimum required ; on the opposite, if you open your borders to them, help them protect their land and prosper under your "guidance", then they could offer their whole support to what amounts theme-wise to vassalizing the entire world by vote. Thus, Diplomatic Victory through vassals would need to be nurtured throughout the game.

 

[azum4roll]

I think I'm the best master ever. I never impose tax, help liberating vassals' cities, gift them Open Borders and luxuries, and leave empty cities for them to capture. Still, I don't think I deserve 100% of their votes.

 

[Hinin]

I think I'm the best master ever. I never impose tax, help liberating vassals' cities, gift them Open Borders and luxuries, and leave empty cities for them to capture. Still, I don't think I deserve 100% of their votes.

Well, I think each number can be tweaked when needed to reach a satisfying end goal.

The goal here is to promote a more victory-driven approach to your vassals : are they simply buffer states, levy sources, or actual parts of your plans for diplomatic victory ?

 

[tu_79]

If I were a vassal in a multiplayer game with every player a human, I wouldn't mind to receive a consolation prize telling that the coalition I am part of has won. Better to vote for my master if he is worthy, than letting other nasty players win.
That must be countered by an increased will to form coalitions on the other side, so when I play solo I am not the only one player that receives requests for vassalage. So, if one player has already two vassals, that should increase the weaker ai willingness to become vassal of his rivals. In a game with 8 players that could end with three major coalitions fighting for hegemony.

I realize that this was pretty much the case with the old ideology wars.

 

[Vhozite]

Are you putting up vassal taxes on them? I've found my vassals offer me a DoF pretty quickly and then vote on my side. I've never had them vote to sanction me.

I always tax my vassals, but only because I’m trying to offset the vassal maintenance (what exactly is this for?). Start at 10%, then lower it for supportive behavior or raise to punish insubordinate behavior. Idk if the AI understands that though

 

[andersw]

AI's alot smarter about lost cause wars when you're turtling them to ****. Assyria lost 1 pikeman and 2 siege weapons to me and immediately settled for peace. Probably gonna see him again when artillery hits though.

Edit:
Wasnt able to make a fort here at a choke i wanted was wondering if this was intended for balancing or? (the fort on the side of the bannanas is where i ended up putting it but i wasnt able to put it directly ontop of them.)
cleared out the marsh under it and everything.

It is buildable upon resources (but you dont get benefit of the resource).
However there could be a fort started but not finished in a nearby tile.
From the wiki:
"Not next to an existing Fort."

 

[Ziad]

Figured out the issue and started a game. Settler cost was a whopping 1041 when I tried to build it. I was playing on Marathon.

Reinstalled base VP. Looked back to normal.
Loaded a Standard game with this beta. It was normal.
Loaded a Marathon game with this beta. It was 9x the cost (3x expected Marathon cost).

No complaints here so I assume most just played on Standard and missed it. I think you're applying the era modifier twice.

 

[InkAxis]

I think the vassal tax needs to be rebalanced a bit. You already get several bonuses to faith, culture, science, etc. So overall there isn't really a need to tax because on base vassals pay off. Meanwhile most vassals are really weak (that's why they are vassals), so they don't have much gpt. The last games I've played with vassals I got maybe 15 gpt if I set taxes to max, and that's at the end of the game. It's not worth it for the penalties.

 

[Revolutionist_8]

... It's not worth it for the penalties.

Well... then you don't do it?