New Beta Version - 1-11 (1/11)

[BiteInTheMark]

What, a game with an entire layer of the map dedicated to military units is a war game? No way!

G

An other game I really like to play is Europa Universalis 4. There it is theoretically possible to annex your way through countries through marriages or voluntarily vasselage, without doing any war. Unlikely, of course, but possible. I remember a game where I was able to get into a personal union with France as Spain, potentially annexing France after 50 years of marriage and this completely peacefully, making me the greatest power on earth.

Writing this, I remember the problems we had with voluntarily vasselage a lot of patches ago, asking me what happened with it. Never seen a voluntarily vasselage now for a long time. I think, if I were an AI without any chance to win the game, I would put my effort to get under the protection of an other major power to have greater chances to survive longer and have greater chances to "win" the game as a team instead of losing completely. Is this an option?

 

[saamohod]

An other game I really like to play is Europa Universalis 4. There it is theoretically possible to annex your way through countries through marriages or voluntarily vasselage, without doing any war. Unlikely, of course, but possible. I remember a game where I was able to get into a personal union with France as Spain, potentially annexing France after 50 years of marriage and this completely peacefully, making me the greatest power on earth.

Keen on personal unions, marriages and diplomatic annexations? Try their other product Crusader Kings 2.

Sorry for the off-topic.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Keen on personal unions, marriages and diplomatic annexations? Try their other product Crusader Kings 2.

Sorry for the off-topic.

Never played, but I played their other game, Victoria 2 too. The fact you can create an empire in Crusader Kings 2 and transport it to EU4 and afterwards even to Victoria 2 is so brilliant.
It was simply a note why I came to the volentarily vasselage and why it didnt happened anymore. Civilzation 6 made also an effort to enable peacefully conquest without war with the city loyality system. Not as complex as EU4 of course, but interesting.
I am interested, what @Recursive think about the possibility to make weak civs more interested in joining a voluntarily vasselage under the reign of the major competitor of the score leader.
Better than to get another war declaration of a 15 tech below backwater nation which gets erased by 20% of my military units.
Voluntarily vasselage could give more advantages to the vassal, than a forced vasselage, enabling the vassal to come closer to the medium pack.

 

[civplayer33]

Voluntarily vasselage could give more advantages to the vassal, than a forced vasselage, enabling the vassal to come closer to the medium pack.

This actually sounds like a really nice feature...maybe Voluntary Vassalage could give the Vassal a bit of a Science and Culture boost, depending on his "distance" from the Master's Tech and Social Policy count?

I've been thinking a bit more about the whole "everyone against the score leader" thing...IMO it's probably best if there were three "tiers" to it, all of which could be classified based on Tech / Social Policy distance from the leader:
1. An AI that does still have a chance at winning (maybe 8 or less Techs from leader, with some Social Policy difference mixed in to modulate the actual value used) should be competitive and bond with others against the leader to dog-pile him (as it works now).
2. An AI that is not completely irrelevant yet but doesn't really have a realistic chance to win anymore (9-15 Techs behind, with some SP mixing) should cozy up to and try to get strong Civs (which should not include the leader, however) that were pretty friendly with them so far (didn't capture any of their Cities, didn't denounce, etc.) to help them attack / disadvantage a close-by strong Civ to maybe get some of their Cities back, for example, or at least take revenge, or even gain some Cities, if they're lucky. This would require introducing a new mechanic that removes victory competition toward any Civ that is not determined to be the "leader" and was nice to the Civ doing the evaluation; maybe even a lessening of war-monger penalty against such a Civ, as long as it's not the leader.
3. An AI in a hopeless situation (>15 Techs behind) should just seek Voluntary Vassalage with a close-by Civ (can include the leader) and try to be meek and cautious so they don't get wiped out (while considering the treatment by their Master as well, of course). Here's where the Voluntary Vassalage boost could come into play nicely to perhaps allow this Civ a tiny chance at "upgrading" to tier 2 after a while.

And the algorithm for determining the leader should have some buffer included in it, so that the leader doesn't change every turn...like at least 4 or 5 Techs/Social Policies ahead of everyone...if there is no such Civ then the mechanism for "Tier 2 Civs" doesn't activate and they are playing as they do now (basically Tier 1).

 

[Omen of Peace]

Ah I see the issue, XP wasn't ever intended to scale, but a recent change to that added xp scaling by era by mistake.

Could we get a sense of the range of XP that can be obtained via quest once you remove the scaling?

Because it actually makes sense to me to have some scaling per era. 10-20 XP is decent in Classical but negligible in the Information era; whereas 35 XP is a touch too strong in Classical.
So not a (A * iEra) scaling, but something like (A * iEra + B) - and the community can chime in on appropriate values.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

This actually sounds like a really nice feature...maybe Voluntary Vassalage could give the Vassal a bit of a Science and Culture boost, depending on his "distance" from the Master's Tech and Social Policy count?

I've been thinking a bit more about the whole "everyone against the score leader" thing...IMO it's probably best if there were three "tiers" to it, all of which could be classified based on Tech / Social Policy distance from the leader:
1. An AI that does still have a chance at winning (maybe 8 or less Techs from leader, with some Social Policy difference mixed in to modulate the actual value used) should be competitive and bond with others against the leader to dog-pile him (as it works now).
2. An AI that is not completely irrelevant yet but doesn't really have a realistic chance to win anymore (9-15 Techs behind, with some SP mixing) should cozy up to and try to get strong Civs (which should not include the leader, however) that were pretty friendly with them so far (didn't capture any of their Cities, didn't denounce, etc.) to help them attack / disadvantage a close-by strong Civ to maybe get some of their Cities back, for example, or at least take revenge, or even gain some Cities, if they're lucky. This would require introducing a new mechanic that removes victory competition toward any Civ that is not determined to be the "leader" and was nice to the Civ doing the evaluation; maybe even a lessening of war-monger penalty against such a Civ, as long as it's not the leader.
3. An AI in a hopeless situation (>15 Techs behind) should just seek Voluntary Vassalage with a close-by Civ (can include the leader) and try to be meek and cautious so they don't get wiped out (while considering the treatment by their Master as well, of course). Here's where the Voluntary Vassalage boost could come into play nicely to perhaps allow this Civ a tiny chance at "upgrading" to tier 2 after a while.

And the algorithm for determining the leader should have some buffer included in it, so that the leader doesn't change every turn...like at least 4 or 5 Techs/Social Policies ahead of everyone...if there is no such Civ then the mechanism for "Tier 2 Civs" doesn't activate and they are playing as they do now (basically Tier 1).

Yeah I had something like that in mind.
1. If the leader is close enough and accessable for a war, the top dogs try to gang up on him. If the leader is too far away, its tried to bribe/support others indirectly and expand at the cost of weak neighbors to match or overcome the power of the leader
2. The middle pack either try to support leading civs which are able to compete with the leader indirectly or by declaring attrition wars with pillaging and attacking badly defended spots, or try to gang up with others vs weak civs to rise in power
3. The bottom tries to seek protection under the power of leaders or mediocre neighbors which might try to expand in the last phase of the game at their cost

 

[Stalker0]

I think the "settling too close to me" trigger is a little sensitive. I just settled a city a full 15 tiles away from the nearest Askia city, and he still asked me to stop settling near him. I'm literally settling as far away from him as I possible could at the moment.

 

[Recursive]

This actually sounds like a really nice feature...maybe Voluntary Vassalage could give the Vassal a bit of a Science and Culture boost, depending on his "distance" from the Master's Tech and Social Policy count?

I've been thinking a bit more about the whole "everyone against the score leader" thing...IMO it's probably best if there were three "tiers" to it, all of which could be classified based on Tech / Social Policy distance from the leader:
1. An AI that does still have a chance at winning (maybe 8 or less Techs from leader, with some Social Policy difference mixed in to modulate the actual value used) should be competitive and bond with others against the leader to dog-pile him (as it works now).
2. An AI that is not completely irrelevant yet but doesn't really have a realistic chance to win anymore (9-15 Techs behind, with some SP mixing) should cozy up to and try to get strong Civs (which should not include the leader, however) that were pretty friendly with them so far (didn't capture any of their Cities, didn't denounce, etc.) to help them attack / disadvantage a close-by strong Civ to maybe get some of their Cities back, for example, or at least take revenge, or even gain some Cities, if they're lucky. This would require introducing a new mechanic that removes victory competition toward any Civ that is not determined to be the "leader" and was nice to the Civ doing the evaluation; maybe even a lessening of war-monger penalty against such a Civ, as long as it's not the leader.
3. An AI in a hopeless situation (>15 Techs behind) should just seek Voluntary Vassalage with a close-by Civ (can include the leader) and try to be meek and cautious so they don't get wiped out (while considering the treatment by their Master as well, of course). Here's where the Voluntary Vassalage boost could come into play nicely to perhaps allow this Civ a tiny chance at "upgrading" to tier 2 after a while.

And the algorithm for determining the leader should have some buffer included in it, so that the leader doesn't change every turn...like at least 4 or 5 Techs/Social Policies ahead of everyone...if there is no such Civ then the mechanism for "Tier 2 Civs" doesn't activate and they are playing as they do now (basically Tier 1).

I could look at the logic and boost FRIENDLY/AFRAID approaches fairly easily. The algorithm would be the most challenging part of such a change. Just thinking aloud at the moment, not any definite plan yet. It's an interesting idea, but may make things too easy.

Yeah I had something like that in mind.
1. If the leader is close enough and accessable for a war, the top dogs try to gang up on him. If the leader is too far away, its tried to bribe/support others indirectly and expand at the cost of weak neighbors to match or overcome the power of the leader
2. The middle pack either try to support leading civs which are able to compete with the leader indirectly or by declaring attrition wars with pillaging and attacking badly defended spots, or try to gang up with others vs weak civs to rise in power
3. The bottom tries to seek protection under the power of leaders or mediocre neighbors which might try to expand in the last phase of the game at their cost

This isn't impossible, but much easier said than done. Firaxis diplo interaction logic is...clumsy, as well, to put it lightly, even moreso when it comes to trade deals. It'd mean a lot of new code, perhaps even a complete rewrite for some things.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I could look at the logic and boost FRIENDLY/AFRAID approaches fairly easily. The algorithm would be the most challenging part of such a change. Just thinking aloud at the moment, not any definite plan yet. It's an interesting idea, but may make things too easy.

This isn't impossible, but much easier said than done. Firaxis diplo interaction logic is...clumsy, as well, to put it lightly, even moreso when it comes to trade deals. It'd mean a lot of new code, perhaps even a complete rewrite for some things.

I know, Ive already looked a bit into the AI approaching logic and its really a mess. What civplayer33 and me would really like to see is maybe an unreachable optimum.
I think no one is really expecting such ultra realistic and complex behavior, If the mod would be able to come close to this, it would be an awesome performance.

 

[Stalker0]

I am very happy with Lancer balance at the moment. I had a strong lancer game in my current one, and they feel just right in strength.

Against Tercio they hold their ground fairly evenly. Now unlike Knight/Longsword they aren't stronger, but now they can compete equally with tercio, which combined with their greater movement and withdraw power gives them a lot of strength on the battleground. They also do a great job killing musketmen and cannons.

As we move into fusiliers, while lancers are weaker, they no longer get crushed. A lancer can hold its ground against a few riflemen when I need it to, and with proper flanking/charge bonuses can do good damage. Meanwhile, the lancer is half the price, so I find I am often fielding lancers to replace attrition, as they build quicker and get on the battlefield quicker with their speed. Further, they are also strong units against field guns.

All in all they feel like a good unit at the moment, so I think the CS strength is right where it needs to be.

 

[Recursive]

I know, Ive already looked a bit into the AI approaching logic and its really a mess. What civplayer33 and me would really like to see is maybe an unreachable optimum.
I think no one is really expecting such ultra realistic and complex behavior, If the mod would be able to come close to this, it would be an awesome performance.

I'm rewriting the approach function because there's issues with the existing one, namely with how the AI sorts through players in order and lackluster debugging tools, but also some performance issues (the AI does an entire approach check for each of its teammates every turn, sometimes multiple times a turn, but the approach is always FRIENDLY so it can be skipped entirely).

I have ambitions of making major improvements to diplo AI interactions and deal AI in the future, but that will take some time, likely months.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

The other side of the story, sometimes the AIs attempt at delaying your WC is just laughable and seriously the military power should be weighed before DOW that it will have an actual effect on the outcome of the match not be just for annoyance sake.
Playing as Assyria Standard speed standard size Communitas map, got early crab monopoly with god of the sea, comfortably founding a religion before turn 80 with Hero worship, orders, mosques, zealotry and to the glory of god.
long story short i ran away so hard, conquered the entire continent eliminating France, Brazil and Babylon with 20+ puppets, got imperialism then discovered the other continent which had the Celts, Songhai and his two vassals; the Ottomans and The Maya.
Got 39 delegates in the WC, decolonized Songhai and liberated their vassals and i'm at the last row in the tech tree.
it's just a matter of couple of turns the game would be over, i have achieved cultural influence over everyone and the project is underway until i got DOW by both Songhai and the Ottomans ..... sending caravels and corvettes to my shore.
Literally i sank an entire fleet with just 1 destroyer with blitz and a battle ship with logistics, sent my real fleet to Songhai continent that just took his coastal cities in no time and fighting his lancers with Xcoms and Modern armor is just hilarious.
I know that's a lot of unnecessary flexing but seriously but i really don't like the DOW for no reason other than i'm the score leader.

Standard Immortal Fractal with Morocco. Game ended (gave up) on Turn 395.

This was a weird game. I honestly didn't feel like I was playing against 7 different AI....it felt like 1 hive mind.

The game started out exceptionally well. Spirit of the Desert kicked in well, got some key wonders, and was able to dominate religion spread with Council of Elders, eventually converting the majority of the world...even managed to get the World Religion. I found myself in top score by the mid game, which is very rare for me on Immortal. And then the bees started....

Starting from medieval onwards, I was at war with at least 4 civs for the entire game (and 80% of the time it was 6-7 civs). They would just rotate out, peace me with one, declare with the next on the next turn. Over and over and over again...and the first proposal I put in the WC was Global Peace Accords!. In the game, I did one war declaration early on (it was just a quick pillage war with my neighbor Brazil). I thought maybe my religious spread was the problem, but funny enough that was the one positive modifier I had with most of the civs. It seemed to be my world wonders and probably the fact I was in top score.

So I was at 35% war weariness for basically the entire game. The biggest hit was to my TRs as Morocco, but I was able to hold on and take territory. Though I swear the AIs were working together, I would attack with my navy, and the next AI would come in from behind and flank. If I ever moved my navy to attack one, the other would come crashing into my city. I would hold my own against one navy....just for a fresh navy from a different AI that would come in and crush my fleet, again and again.

The AIs all had defensive pacts, and there was even a 5 civ one. Late game, every AI except Mongolia went Order (I was Freedom, founded first, and I had the highest tourism). And then in the World Council, every single one of them ganged up on me. First sanction, then city state sanction, then decolonization, removed my world religion, took my neighboring city states as spheres or open doors, and dropped me as host. I had 3 times the votes of the next highest civ, but it doesn't matter when all 7 civs take you to the cleaners. So steadily I was kicked in the teeth, and dropped into 3rd place. Meanwhile, Assyria teched like a crazy person, and went from 1 tech behind me to 7 techs in front. Once he declared on me with modern armor vs my special forces, I figured it was time to call it.

This game was challenging, though I'll admit it wasn't that much fun. I get that the AIs saw me as a threat, but I never get that kind of cooperation when I am low in score against the leader, so I felt like I was just singled out for destruction for pretty much the entire game.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

The other side of the story, sometimes the AIs attempt at delaying your WC is just laughable and seriously the military power should be weighed before DOW that it will have an actual effect on the outcome of the match not be just for annoyance sake.
Playing as Assyria Standard speed standard size Communitas map, got early crab monopoly with god of the sea, comfortably founding a religion before turn 80 with Hero worship, orders, mosques, zealotry and to the glory of god.
long story short i ran away so hard, conquered the entire continent eliminating France, Brazil and Babylon with 20+ puppets, got imperialism then discovered the other continent which had the Celts, Songhai and his two vassals; the Ottomans and The Maya.
Got 39 delegates in the WC, decolonized Songhai and liberated their vassals and i'm at the last row in the tech tree.
it's just a matter of couple of turns the game would be over, i have achieved cultural influence over everyone and the project is underway until i got DOW by both Songhai and the Ottomans ..... sending caravels and corvettes to my shore.
Literally i sank an entire fleet with just 1 destroyer with blitz and a battle ship with logistics, sent my real fleet to Songhai continent that just took his coastal cities in no time and fighting his lancers with Xcoms and Modern armor is just hilarious.
I know that's a lot of unnecessary flexing but seriously but i really don't like the DOW for no reason other than i'm the score leader.

Iam currently in a game with Carthage, small Communitas Map, Standard speed. Was able to completly conquer/cover half the map in 150 turns, vassalize the Iroquese on the other side of the shore in another 25 turns (Fast strike vs. a newly founded city with my elite naval forces to have a beach head and then sieged his capital with navy only too, cause I had no Astronomy in the beginning of the war).
I saved the game after the vasellization of the Iroquese and will now play peacefully. I think I could conqer the rest with no big problems but now want to see, how the AI behave, if I play now completly peacefully.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Here is a little quiz, nothing related to the current version, but simply a thing I want to mention:

What do you think is the difference between the 2 top pictures, and what could be the difference between the 2 bottom pictures (for the 2 bottom pictures, the ingame editor was used)?

 

[General_Drax]

We could use some sort of 'Resignation' from AI when it's clear they have no way to win. Voluntary vassalage is fine.

In my current game with Huns I'm in a similar situation of SuperNoobCamper. My navy got 14 Cruisers and 22 Ironclads vs the mighty of Assirian fleet of 3 Galleass and 5 Corvettes. The army is even more powerful.

Of course I can just declare victory and start another game but I think I need to play another 100+ turns before achieve the inevitable DV.

 

[CrazyG]

Here is some diplomatic feedback
@Recursive

I built Pyramids, took tradition, and built two settlers back to back. Settle my 4th city on turn 51. All AI instantly go from friendly to hostile, I have territorial disputes with everyone, two turns later Sweden and Indonesia both declare war. Ethiopia denounces me. For several of them, there's no way they actually think this territory is theirs, they are on the other side of a pangea, and it includes peaceful civs. Many of them have 3 cities, so I only have 1 more than they do.

This is a pretty extreme example, but I'm finding the expanding empire too aggressively is really jumpy in general. I'd say there's no reason for it activate at all with just 4 cities, and I think it shouldn't ever activate unless I have at least two more cities than the civ who is getting offended.

Here is a little quiz, nothing related to the current version, but simply a thing I want to mention:

What do you think is the difference between the 2 top pictures, and what could be the difference between the 2 bottom pictures (for the 2 bottom pictures, the ingame editor was used)?

I think the difference is just one social policy, but I can't guess what it would be. I'll guess that your civ is India, your pantheon is God-King, and you built a lot of holy sites.

 

[Recursive]

Here is some diplomatic feedback
@Recursive

I built Pyramids, took tradition, and built two settlers back to back. Settle my 4th city on turn 51. All AI instantly go from friendly to hostile, I have territorial disputes with everyone, two turns later Sweden and Indonesia both declare war. Ethiopia denounces me. For several of them, there's no way they actually think this territory is theirs, they are on the other side of a pangea, and it includes peaceful civs. Many of them have 3 cities, so I only have 1 more than they do.

This is a pretty extreme example, but I'm finding the expanding empire too aggressively is really jumpy in general. I'd say there's no reason for it activate at all with just 4 cities, and I think it shouldn't ever activate unless I have at least two more cities than the civ who is getting offended.


I think the difference is just one social policy, but I can't guess what it would be. I'll guess that your civ is India, your pantheon is God-King, and you built a lot of holy sites.

Thanks for the feedback. I think these modifiers were overtuned and I'll tone them down.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Here is a little quiz, nothing related to the current version, but simply a thing I want to mention:

What do you think is the difference between the 2 top pictures, and what could be the difference between the 2 bottom pictures (for the 2 bottom pictures, the ingame editor was used)?

My guess would be something to do with capturing or loosing cities.

Edit: nope, I have changed my mind. Now I think it's working different tiles (and specialists) in your cities.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I think the difference is just one social policy, but I can't guess what it would be. I'll guess that your civ is India, your pantheon is God-King, and you built a lot of holy sites.

My guess would be something to do with capturing or loosing cities.

Edit: nope, I have changed my mind. Now I think it's working different tiles (and specialists) in your cities.

You guys are still free to quess what it is, if you want the answer, here she is:

Spoiler Solution :

CrazyG is right, it's only 1 policy difference. I have picked the colonialism policy from the Imperialism tree, which adds culture and science to military buildings and extra modifiers for monopolies. (cause of conquest, I have +10% to each yield type)

In the 2 bottom pictures, the top one is with full rationalism, the bottom one with full Imperialism. I want to note, that even with full rationalism, the science/culture/gold output is less than with colonialism only (second picture from the top).

 

[Patee]

Playing another game with this version. Ethiopia/Standard/Pangea/Epic/Emperor.
Turn 286, on the second place after Pocatello.
Been DOW with every single AI just for being on the 1st place for some time.

IMO this gang-up thing against leaders is a bit over the edge at the moment.