New Beta Version - December 1st (12-1)

[crdvis16]

And you’ll notice none of the things you suggested to build instead is a different plant. I’m not suggesting you want a plant in every city every game.

I think I was more assuming the plants had already been built in whatever cities needed them. From there, I was trying to make the case that the solar plant isn't necessarily better because it's not always a given that you'd be working processes.

 

[pineappledan]

Based on what G has posted, Wind/solar are the best options for your capital and space part cities because they give more yields without requiring a process to be worked. So you can get those parts, projects, etc.

if you have enough turns left in your game to make it worthwhile to build plants in your remaining cities, then you determine your win condition and set your secondary cities towards that win:

• If you are going for a CV and need to influence someone still then focus processes to get internet/globalization (solar)
• If you are going CV and just need your final prereq tenets, work processes (solar)
• If you are going DiploV then ignore plants completely. None of them help you more than diplomat spam, and your game ends when you finish the UN WC project
• If you are going SV then work processes (solar)
• Never EVER get a nuclear plant. There are better uses of uranium than 25%GPP and losing 4 yields per citizen in comparison to a wind/hydro

Hubble and CERN blow ISS out of the water. You take your 500 Contribution bonus and leave it for some other rube to finish.

You are trying to get me to defend a strawman. Solar is strong. Nuclear is not. You are trying to get me to defend processes in every case, and of course that’s absurd.

 

[pineappledan]

+100% yo processes is strong. If you want to debate the prevalence of processes in late game then take it somewhere else. That’s not the point. IF you are going to work processes, then doubling them is incredible. It’s so incredible that IF your entire strategy for late game hinges on GPs and specialists then you might be better off abusing process spam to increase your bulbs than relying on a very low 25% GP rate increase from nuclear at this stage of the game.

a competitive place for nuclear (remember, it takes a uranium) Would be +4 of each specialists’ main yield and +66% GP rate. It won’t compete with wind/solar otherwise on raw yields.

edit: the whole point of this was that it’s very hard to judge the power of process boosts relative to other boosts, so it would be easier for balance if ALL plants boosted processes, and solar plant had some other unique bonus.

 

[Gazebo]

+100% yo processes is strong. If you want to debate the prevalence of processes in late game then take it somewhere else. That’s not the point. IF you are going to work processes, then doubling them is incredible. It’s so incredible that IF your entire strategy for late game hinges on GPs and specialists then you might be better off abusing process spam to increase your bulbs than relying on a very low 25% GP rate increase from nuclear at this stage of the game.

a competitive place for nuclear (remember, it takes a uranium) Would be +4 of each specialists’ main yield and +66% GP rate. It won’t compete with wind/solar otherwise on raw yields.

edit: the whole point of this was that it’s very hard to judge the power of process boosts relative to other boosts, so it would be easier for balance if ALL plants boosted processes, and solar plant had some other unique bonus.

Wait, where are you getting +100%? It's 40% efficiency (up 15% from 25% conversion).

Edit: oops, there's a typo in my changelog. 15% up. To 40%.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Process Boost - boosts process efficiency for all processes by 25%

Base processes give 25% except for defense process unless the tooltips are wrong. If base production conversion is 25% then an increase to 50% is 100% increase.

edit: I see your edit now. Typo in the change log made it +100% when in reality it is only 60%

 

[Gazebo]

Base processes give 25% except for defense process unless the tooltips are wrong. If base production conversion is 25% then an increase to 50% is 100% increase.

edit: I see your edit now. Typo in the change log made it +100% when in reality it is only 60%

My bad.

 

[pineappledan]

So this stacks with the existing boost to farming? A solar/agribusiness city will have 55%=> conversion? I think it makes more sense to drop from agribusiness and leave process boosts to the plants.

I will maintain that it’s going to be very hard to gauge the power of this relative to the other plants. It’s situationally incredible or useless, and I think differentiating the solar plant by some other ability would ease testing.

 

[Gazebo]

So this stacks with the existing boost to farming? A solar/agribusiness city will have 55%=> conversion? I think it makes more sense to drop from agribusiness and leave process boosts to the plants.

I will maintain that it’s going to be very hard to gauge the power of this relative to the other plants. It’s situationally incredible or useless, and I think differentiating the solar plant by some other ability would ease testing.

Agribusiness doesn't have the process modifier ever since I fixed the yield->yield auto converted thing.

 

[Recursive]

FYI, there were some bugs discovered while implementing a few of my changes, so the following changes will not be in the next version (as they need some edits):
- Backstabbing penalties rework (only partially implemented)*
- AI refusing to trade certain items based on trustworthiness

Everything else (the vast majority) is still fine, so no worries.

* AI will consider you untrustworthy if you:
- Have betrayed them personally
- Have DoWed any of your friends
- Have denounced at least 2 of your friends

Penalties will still expire over time as intended, but the IsUntrustworthyFriend function to determine trustworthiness is the problem; the issues are minor, however, and I'll fix for the version after this one.

 

[crdvis16]

Based on what G has posted, Wind/solar are the best options for your capital and space part cities because they give more yields without requiring a process to be worked. So you can get those parts, projects, etc.

if you have enough turns left in your game to make it worthwhile to build plants in your remaining cities, then you determine your win condition and set your secondary cities towards that win:

• If you are going for a CV and need to influence someone still then focus processes to get internet/globalization (solar)
• If you are going CV and just need your final prereq tenets, work processes (solar)
• If you are going DiploV then ignore plants completely. None of them help you more than diplomat spam, and your game ends when you finish the UN WC project
• If you are going SV then work processes (solar)
• Never EVER get a nuclear plant. There are better uses of uranium than 25%GPP and losing 4 yields per citizen in comparison to a wind/hydro

Hubble and CERN blow ISS out of the water. You take your 500 Contribution bonus and leave it for some other rube to finish.

You are trying to get me to defend a strawman. Solar is strong. Nuclear is not. You are trying to get me to defend processes in every case, and of course that’s absurd.

The thing I'm pushing back against in your posts is the idea that there is no situation where Nuclear would be better in a city. I think you're probably right that in most situations it's true, just not every situation.

One that comes to mind is:

Tradition capital that is working a crap ton of specialists and relatively less land. Its busy building things (military/civilian/trade units, world congress projects, whatever) so Solar is probably out as a candidate. In that case I think the Nuclear plant is probably best. You get roughly equal yields from the +2 specialist yields as you would have from the +6 land yields (and in some cases, better yields from the specialists as culture is stronger yield at times) and the +25% GP rate might get you your last GPs a few turns earlier so that you win the game with that last musician/scientist/writer bulb a few turns earlier. The reliance on Uranium might be tough- Tradition implies a smaller empire so perhaps less access to Uranium but at the same time you might not need as much Uranium for units.

In any case, in this situation the Nuclear plant would arguably be the best choice. Is the above common enough or does the Nuclear plant need a bit more to it than what G has laid out so far? I think you're probably right that it might need more but I also think your comparisons so far haven't been very fair.

 

[pineappledan]

I mean, there's some more wrinkles with that as well.

• You could send ITRs to your capital just so you can take more citizens off the land and into specialist slots, so you could also prop up your city that way
• If you are playing a Tradition/Artistry game then you will have a guaranteed +100%GPR, in addition to:
  • +25% for leaning tower
  • +50% to Merchants with Industry
  • +33% to Scientists with Rationalism
    
  • +33% to GWAM from amphitheater/opera house/museum
  • +25% from Order or +33% from Freedom
• So the lower boundary is +125% for GEngineers, and the upper boundary is +208% for GMerchants before you add unique bonuses from civs (Austria, Babylon, Korea, etc.). An additional 25% is a drop in the bucket at that point.

So is there a way to make Nuclear work in a capital? Sure. Squeezing that 1-3 turns earlier out of your last few GPs could be useful. As useful as 222 on all land tiles though? I'm dubious on that.

 

[Stalker0]

This doesn't apply to most people, but I think it's worth mentioning that on slower game speeds the GDR has the opportunity to have a much greater impact. I'm happy to playtest and see how things go though!

Its true, I want to hear more feedback from epic speed players on Information Era activities.

I will also say that these proposed changes will be a nerf to SV play:

1) You can no longer do the Sydney/Hubble slingshot as easily as before.
2) The massive production boost from Nuclear plants is gone. Spaceship parts will take significantly longer to make.

I think these are good changes but it does have consequence to the overall victory balance.

 

[pineappledan]

2) The massive production boost from Nuclear plants is gone. Spaceship parts will take significantly longer to make.

Agreed, 15% and 50% got replaced by a single 10% maximum modifier. That's 55% of production modifier that got subtracted from the game. This is going to wallop those production times

 

[Stalker0]

• So the lower boundary is +125% for GEngineers, and the upper boundary is +208% for GMerchants before you add unique bonuses from civs (Austria, Babylon, Korea, etc.). An additional 25% is a drop in the bucket at that point.

I would argue its 125 and 158 (for GS with rationalism). I very rarely go industry as Tall, and Great Merchants are not GP I'm that concerned about at that point anyway.

+25% bonus translates into actually being:

1) 20% faster (if your base was 125)
2) 15.8% faster (base of 158)

 

[crdvis16]

So is there a way to make Nuclear work in a capital? Sure. Squeezing that 1-3 turns earlier out of your last few GPs could be useful. As useful as 222 on all land tiles though? I'm dubious on that.

If you're working mostly specialists and less land then presumably the +2 to specialist yields from the Nuclear plant is about as useful as the +2/2/2 from hydro/wind. If you're working 3 specialists for every 1 land then the total yields are equal with the added bonus of getting culture as your yield from some of those specialists and then getting the +25% GP rate on top.

 

[pineappledan]

I would argue its 125 and 158 (for GS with rationalism). I very rarely go industry as Tall, and Great Merchants are not GP I'm that concerned about at that point anyway.

The cap for GScientists with Rationalism is the same as GWAMs: +158% without leaning tower and with Order
The cap for GScientists & GWAMs with Rationalism, Freedom, and Leaning Tower is +191%

• +25% garden
• +25% national monument
• +25% tradition
• +25% artistry
• +33% rationalism/amphitheater/opera house/museum
• +25% leaning tower
• +33% freedom

At that max potential, +25% gives a total of +216%, or 8.6% faster. (25% / (191%+100%))

If you're working 3 specialists for every 1 land then the total yields are equal with the added bonus of getting culture as your yield from some of those specialists and then getting the +25% GP rate on top.

If you're working 3 times as many specialists slots then you're contorting your city management in order to prove a point. It can be done, but that's not how you would distribute citizens without ITRs propping up food consumption and other suboptimal choices.

If literally none of your citizens are working land tiles then +1 yield to specialists is better than +100000 yields to tiles, but this is a reduction as absurdum. You’re just doing this to win an argument, rather than win the game.

 

[Stalker0]

The cap for GScientists with Rationalism is the same as GWAMs: +158% without leaning tower and with Order
The cap for GScientists & GWAMs with Rationalism, Freedom, and Leaning Tower is +191%

• +25% garden
• +25% national monument
• +25% tradition
• +25% artistry
• +33% rationalism/amphitheater/opera house/museum
• +25% leaning tower
• +33% freedom

In that case the boost to your GS would be 13% (its 25 / your current percentage bonus).

 

[pineappledan]

The artistry opener is +25% GP rate in all cities

Your percentage bonus needs to be added to a base 100% for the calculation because that's how percentages work. If something is 25% faster then it's (25% / 100%) faster. ie. Your base rate is 100%, or just 1 so something being 25% faster is 125% as fast.

 

[Guynemer]

Regardless, my endgame tradition capital is working specialists almost exclusively; the increase to GP production is probably not relevant, but the boost to specialist yields very much is.

 

[Stalker0]

The artistry opener is +25% GP rate in all cities

Yep I goofed.