New Beta Version - January 8th (1-8)

[pineappledan]

Thing is, I arrived at the distance scaler after much gnashing and gnawing of teeth w/ regards to deflating trade route yields. It was not my first choice, even though - now - I like it most. I'm a generous man, though, so I think a distance scaler modifier makes sense for some buildings, like the EIC and the Customs House. Perhaps if I throw it on the EIC and take away its TR the Carthaginians will stop nipping my heels.

If such a thing were to be implemented on EIC, it would make an excellent addition to either the Colossus or Great Lighthouse with no additional code, while substituting or weakening of some existing effects

 

[Stalker0]

So now we must choose between more yields and more tourism/growth. This is not a bad thing.

I feel like this is a phantom decision. Sure you could make this choice, but I think the vast majority of people open up the trade route screen, look for the best yields, and pick that route. Now if I'm going for CV I pick the civ I need the most tourism with....but pick the best yields from that. On rare occasion I will send a TR to a CS that has the need a trade route mission, even if its not the best.

Decisions can be good for a game, but modern design often focus on clear cut and impactful decisions.

When I make a decision on a trade route to get Hammer/Food vs Gold/Culture/Science...that is a nice clear decision. Or when I choose a place that gives me more gold but less science, also a clear choice because the numbers are clearly presented to me.

When I make a choice to get more yields...or get less tourism based on some number of turn calculation that I am not going to remember, that is a muddled decision.

 

[mighte]

After having played multiple games since the change I really hate the distance scaling on TRs. Nerf the yields a bit if needed, but distance scaling is a terrible mechanic. It's unfun, unrealistic, annoying, hurts mostly based on RNG beyond your control and actually reduces the skill cap. (Because it almost always results in a clear and easy choice.)

I think the one trade-route to a city is enough to encourage diversity in TRs.

I have to say that I agree with ElliotS on this point. Also, I love the change to investment. Before gold was an afterthought used to upgrade unites when you had the funds. I find myself focusing more on gold than I once did. This also helps civs that focus on gold.

 

[Infixo]

I think you overestimate the importance of distance scaling. I was looking into possibility of adding building that would decrease the penalty a few days ago. And I did some calculations, assuming 25% of difference. So basically instead of range 25..100 we will get 50..100. If you check various values at various distances, the average would be like 10pp more. And since you targeting further cities anyway, that is even smaller. So, we’re disussing now how to add a yield or maybe 2 to a TR. Not worth it. Just change the max penalty to 50% and the effect will be the same, with 1 min work.

 

[ridjack]

I’d say progress is much preferred. Like for 1 tradition choice there are 3 progress choices. But there are tradition civs.

It's seemed really off for me; the most extreme example is a recent game where exactly one AI (out of 15) picked tradition; four took Authority and literally everyone else was Progress.

 

[ridjack]

Early game forests seem completely detrimental to me now, without the Herbalist to make them useful. Having a city surrounded by hilly plains forests ends up with a starving city with frustrating regularity; having my capital spawned in such a location seems like an auto-reroll. What am I missing?

 

[CrazyG]

I really hate scaling on trade routes. There are several buildings with the purpose of making a city appealing to trade, there is a complex resource diversity mechanic. Neither of these matter, the turn that Spain founded Seville it was a better desination that developed Madrid with a market and diverse resources.

Also if you already have enough distance to access all cities on your continent, building length boosters just flat out lowers your yields. I have no options at the maximum distance, its just ocean

 

[Stalker0]

Early game forests seem completely detrimental to me now, without the Herbalist to make them useful. Having a city surrounded by hilly plains forests ends up with a starving city with frustrating regularity; having my capital spawned in such a location seems like an auto-reroll. What am I missing?

Chop them and Farm them. You now have a very nice big boost to your early production.

 

[ridjack]

Chop them and Farm them. You now have a very nice big boost to your early production.

Having a city surrounded by hilly plains forests

Hills mean they can't be farmed, barring rivers.

 

[Stalker0]

Hills mean they can't be farmed, barring rivers.

Good point. Spread like wildfire with your early production for settlers, and then send internal TRs to your capital

Or you can use tradition and then fealty to artificially bump your food up.

 

[ridjack]

Good point. Spread like wildfire with your early production for settlers, and then send internal TRs to your capital

Or you can use tradition and then fealty to artificially bump your food up.

All reasonable ideas, and all things that I do, but it still seems to add up to the idea that forests are now something I don't want to see a lot of.

 

[Gazebo]

I really hate scaling on trade routes. There are several buildings with the purpose of making a city appealing to trade, there is a complex resource diversity mechanic. Neither of these matter, the turn that Spain founded Seville it was a better desination that developed Madrid with a market and diverse resources.

Also if you already have enough distance to access all cities on your continent, building length boosters just flat out lowers your yields. I have no options at the maximum distance, its just ocean

Define a situation where you can get less than 1 culture, scaling with era, from a CS that you are friends with without some kind of non-integral scaler. That's why the distance modifier exists. The base value for CS culture is 1 for friends. Without that, CSs are very poor competitors for TRs v. major civs. Scaling off of that is the entire trade route system that, ultimately, is designed without floats - it's all whole numbers. The distance modifier is an effort to selectively give the bonus to some CSs and not to others by offering an in-game rationale - the distance modifier.

Now, here are some options:

1.) I change the function so that it uses the furthest possible TR as your 100% instead of your max distance. I'd considered this, but I was worried it would be too opaque.
2.) I change the function so that it caps at 50%. TR yields will inflate because of this.
3.) I create a 'reverse diversity' modifier that penalizes routes that are more diverse, resource-wise, than the home city. So routes from diverse cities to non-diverse ones are more lucrative than non-diverse to diverse cities. Could flip this, but it seems more likely that diverse cities would make more money trading with non-diverse cities than the other way around.

G

 

[Ziad]

Perhaps if I throw it on the EIC and take away its TR the Carthaginians will stop nipping my heels.

G

Yay

Maybe make Great Cothon reduce trade route distance penalties from the city its in by 100%?

Or maybe make it provide the baseline EIC reduction to all cities with Harbors?

Pls don't kill me.

 

[CrazyG]

1.) I change the function so that it uses the furthest possible TR as your 100% instead of your max distance. I'd considered this, but I was worried it would be too opaque.

This is clearly a change for the better. This way I don't get punished for building a caravansary when I can already reach all targets on my continent

On the CS culture thing, firstly wasn't the thing where only one trade route can be sent to a city intended to fix this? Before I would ally 1 CS and send all my routes to him, but this change was made to fix that. I don't recall playing a patch recently where CS were poor targets. A civ who is killing me in culture or science might be better, but that isn't a problem. When I'm ahead or even with everyone, I find CS to already be the best targets.

Second question, do CS trade routes need to provide culture? Do influential trade routes need to provide culture? I don't think so personally, as a rubber banding mechanic culture trade routes is alright (I'm actually indifferent towards it, I very rarely get culture from this). But by giving this source of culture to civs who are already doing well in tourism or have CS allies you are giving it to civs who are already doing well. If you are fighting trade route yield inflation, cut the culture from these sources.

 

[Gazebo]

This is clearly a change for the better. This way I don't get punished for building a caravansary when I can already reach all targets on my continent

On the CS culture thing, firstly wasn't the thing where only one trade route can be sent to a city intended to fix this? Before I would ally 1 CS and send all my routes to him, but this change was made to fix that. I don't recall playing a patch recently where CS were poor targets. A civ who is killing me in culture or science might be better, but that isn't a problem. When I'm ahead or even with everyone, I find CS to already be the best targets.

Second question, do CS trade routes need to provide culture? Do influential trade routes need to provide culture? I don't think so personally, as a rubber banding mechanic culture trade routes is alright (I'm actually indifferent towards it, I very rarely get culture from this). But by giving this source of culture to civs who are already doing well in tourism or have CS allies you are giving it to civs who are already doing well. If you are fighting trade route yield inflation, cut the culture from these sources.

Adding culture to TRs really helps keep the AI at policy-parity. I'm very reluctant to remove that.

For me, distance scaling is a more interesting (and less artificial) means of restricting trade route targeting than the '1 route per target' rule. I added them both at the same time to get a feel from the community on them. I'd be fine with reverting that change (as it is very artificial) and keeping distance scaling based on your longest possible route (instead of your max distance). Sound good?


G

 

[Gazebo]

Yay

Maybe make Great Cothon reduce trade route distance penalties from the city its in by 100%?

Or maybe make it provide the baseline EIC reduction to all cities with Harbors?

Pls don't kill me.

Morocco says no.

G

 

[CrazyG]

Adding culture to TRs really helps keep the AI at policy-parity. I'm very reluctant to remove that.

As a whole, sure, this makes sense.

But do city states need it? Because I don't see how including it on city states contributes to policy parity.

 

[ElliotS]

This is clearly a change for the better. This way I don't get punished for building a caravansary when I can already reach all targets on my continent

On the CS culture thing, firstly wasn't the thing where only one trade route can be sent to a city intended to fix this? Before I would ally 1 CS and send all my routes to him, but this change was made to fix that. I don't recall playing a patch recently where CS were poor targets. A civ who is killing me in culture or science might be better, but that isn't a problem. When I'm ahead or even with everyone, I find CS to already be the best targets.

Second question, do CS trade routes need to provide culture? Do influential trade routes need to provide culture? I don't think so personally, as a rubber banding mechanic culture trade routes is alright (I'm actually indifferent towards it, I very rarely get culture from this). But by giving this source of culture to civs who are already doing well in tourism or have CS allies you are giving it to civs who are already doing well. If you are fighting trade route yield inflation, cut the culture from these sources.

I agree 100%. Also I think the culture catchup on trade routes is important, given how many science catchup mechanics there are.

 

[ElliotS]

Adding culture to TRs really helps keep the AI at policy-parity. I'm very reluctant to remove that.

For me, distance scaling is a more interesting (and less artificial) means of restricting trade route targeting than the '1 route per target' rule. I added them both at the same time to get a feel from the community on them. I'd be fine with reverting that change (as it is very artificial) and keeping distance scaling based on your longest possible route (instead of your max distance). Sound good?


G

I actually like the one per city change.

Changing distance to longest possible would be a good change to start with.

 

[Gazebo]

As a whole, sure, this makes sense.

But do city states need it? Because I don't see how including it on city states contributes to policy parity.

It makes CS routes suffer versus major civs without it.

G