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

[Gothic_Empire]

Making resource diversity important sounds interesting.

 

[MorphBer]

Tried a game in the new patch, this is how it looks on T111 (epic)

6 Cities plus 2 conquered. +56 Gold with 7 Technologies is pretty sick, can invest in all the buildings.

One thing that happened here was that I took Amsterdam and William would take pace offer right away, allthough he could cleary just take the city back easily.

 

[Ziad]

Morocco says no.

G

Pirating my trade routes and now plundering my Great Cothon. Damn you Morroco!

 

[tu_79]

My take on trade routes:

It feels right that longer trade routes give more yields, more gold, more culture, more science, just because those are coming from very exotic places.
It does not feel right that, by building a trading building that increases range, older trade routes get lower yields.
It does not feel right that, by improving road network, yields from trade routes are lowered.
Land trade routes are always useful, if only for the effect on towns and villages. I don't mind if they are not as profitable as sea trade routes, as long as I can use them in long roads filled with villages.
I does not feel right that longer internal trade routes are more profitable than shorter ones.
Shorter trade routes are completed faster, they can influence faster and get extra growth bonuses, something is not clear in the tooltips. I could accept decreasing yields from trade routes when they provide faster influence and growth to my origin cities, but I need to have this information at hand.

I don't know if the following mechanic will check all my requirements (please, don't take these numbers as fixed in stone):

- Current trade values are set for distance (mesured in steps) 5.
- Trade with cities under 5 distance doesn't change its value.
- Trade with cities over 5 distance increases its value by 5% every extra step. A city at 11 steps will have 30% better yields.
- Trade with friendly City States extra yields will scale on era, so base 6 culture and 6 science in Atomic Era at range 5. If this city is at 11 steps away, then it would yield 9 culture and 9 science. Allied status doubles this value. (Remember that only one trade route is allowed to the same city)
- Trading buildings increase speed movement of related trade units. Maximum range is fixed at 8 turns. Trading time in the city is fixed at 4 turns. So, if a trade unit can come and go in 16 turns, then it can reach its destination, and it will take 20 turns to complete the trade route. Going to a closer city, maybe reachable in just 2 turns, will take 8 turns to complete.
EDIT I realize that this point will be very difficult to implement with current code, and it won't really solve anything. So, we'll do as now with the extra range, but with extra gold per trade route, so current trades don't lose value. Caravansaries give +3 gold as of now.
- Internal trade routes follow a reverse logic. For every step over 5, they will lose 5%. So sending food to a very remote city will see some food lost in the way.

If those values end up being too high or too low, then change them, but I think the mechanic is fine.

Also, it would be lovely is someone is able to add estimated time to complete the route, along with the distance information.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

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.

1) This make sense, and iam definitly for. Else, already mentioned, its in a lot of cases counter productive.
Iam also for the reduction or remove from culture/science from CS traderoutes. Else, the benefits from diplomacy/statecraft play are too high
If you are high in tech and policies, you want to avoid traderoutes with other civs, mainly trading with friendly city states and still get culture and science (like other civs trading with you, cause of your advantage). In this case, others dont catch up, cause you and the other civs getting science/culture.
If you are a diplo civ, you go statecraft and already get the benefits of increasing influence and tourismn. (Still asking me why there is a tourismn bonus in the statecraft tree. If you go CV, you send all your trade units to other civs to get the trade partner advantage. And if you are a diplo civ like germany/marocco, you send all your trade units to CS, where your tourismn influence bonus doesnt matter.)
And if you are behind in tech/policy, you want to send all to other civs to catch up and get more by them, than by CS.

 

[Recursive]

Hi! First time ever making a post on these forums, but I've been lurking for a while and am a huge fan of Vox Populi, and started playing it recently. I'm sure you've heard the standard "this mod makes Civ V great again" stuff so I won't repeat the countless people before me, even though it really is an amazing mod. One of the most dedicated I've seen, and the amount of consideration that goes into each new decision or balancing change is hugely impressive to me. Thank you for all the amazing work you've done! (that goes for everyone who works on Vox Populi, with an extra thank you to Gazebo)

Personally I think tu_79 has a very good idea when it comes to changing the distance scaling on trade routes, which seems to be the most unpopular part of the new beta. In addition, having tried this out for myself I find the proximity penalty and -% reduction to be an unsatisfying way of handling it (unsatisfying to look at in the tooltip, too).

However, I do understand the balancing issues involved and that TRs can't be too powerful. But in my opinion they're, as others have said, underwhelming at the moment, especially with the big nerf to tourism. I think some combination of increasing the importance of resource diversity (which encourages strategic positioning/management of resources), changing distance scaling to be more of a bonus rather than a penalty (expanding road networks/building new trade buildings reducing the value of TRs makes no sense to me), and implementation of tu_79's ideas would be the way to go. Route completion time information also sounds very handy to have.

Not sure about my thoughts on the 'one city one route' restriction. I do feel, as Gazebo said, that it's arbitrary, but at the same time I think diversity in destinations is important and will lead to TRs being more interesting. There might be a better way to handle that, but I can't personally think of one.

Just my two cents, and I'm new so my statements may be completely stupid, but eh, not like I lose anything by making suggestions. Thanks again!

 

[Infixo]

It does not feel right that, by building a trading building that increases range, older trade routes get lower yields.
It does not feel right that, by improving road network, yields from trade routes are lowered.

I does not feel right that longer internal trade routes are more profitable than shorter ones.

The above are not true.
1. Distance scaling on internal routes was an error and it was fixed.
2. Extending TR range does not change existing routes.

 

[tu_79]

The above are not true.
1. Distance scaling on internal routes was an error and it was fixed.
2. Extending TR range does not change existing routes.

It wasn't my experience in 2018-1-3, and I'm already busy in early game with newest release to have noticed the change. Any chance to add estimated trade route duration?

 

[Infixo]

Any chance to add estimated trade route duration?

You mean before the route starts? In the selection screen?

 

[tu_79]

You mean before the route starts? In the selection screen?

Yes, helping choosing the best trade route for the desired effect, yields or tourism.

Edit. Though it will be good too in the trade routes screen.

 

[crdvis16]

I really really like the whole "only a single trade route can go to a given destination city", regardless of it being arbitrary or not. It makes the consequences of war more important in my games. Previously, if I pissed off all of my neighbors and got into a bunch of wars I could still safely fill out all of my trade route slots to a few destinations (probably a few nearby allied city states). Now, getting into wars with neighbors means that I am probably cut down to just a few trade routes that are safe unless I MAKE other trade routes safe via military placement. IMO this is much more realistic- being cut off from trade was a huge deal, countries starved and had their economies wrecked because of it during wars. But more than the realism is that it makes war more consequential and dynamic.

Please don't revert back to the old system of being able to send a crap ton of trade routes to the same city.

 

[Infixo]

Yes, helping choosing the best trade route for the desired effect, yields or tourism.
Edit. Though it will be good too in the trade routes screen.

Looking through that code is really fun. Can learn a ton of stuff. So.
1. The turns are only calculated when creating a route. The function that gives available routes doesn't do that. The code itself isn't complicated, so I could probably make another Lua for that and show it in the window.
2. The calculation of turns is little weird. It seems that initial idea of Firaxis was to simply get the length and divide it by route speed. And each route has to make 2 circuits. But it seems that short routes would cycle too often and they added a check that forces a route to last at least 30 turns (game speed adjusted). VP changes this a little and makes it shorter with every Era.
So, the worst case is when the route makes 2 circuits and still misses 2 turns to complete. Then it goes again and comes back after 14 turns. So, in summary it can last from 30 to 42 turns.
3. I think there's a little bug in VP changes. They shorten turns (30) by Era (-1 for each Era). But this is applied after game speed modifier. I think it should be before. Now the route lets say in Modern takes 25 turns (30-5). But in Marathon in will take 85 (30*3-5). I think it should be 75 ((30-5)*3).

 

[tu_79]

Looking through that code is really fun. Can learn a ton of stuff. So.
1. The turns are only calculated when creating a route. The function that gives available routes doesn't do that. The code itself isn't complicated, so I could probably make another Lua for that and show it in the window.
2. The calculation of turns is little weird. It seems that initial idea of Firaxis was to simply get the length and divide it by route speed. And each route has to make 2 circuits. But it seems that short routes would cycle too often and they added a check that forces a route to last at least 30 turns (game speed adjusted). VP changes this a little and makes it shorter with every Era.
So, the worst case is when the route makes 2 circuits and still misses 2 turns to complete. Then it goes again and comes back after 14 turns. So, in summary it can last from 30 to 42 turns.
3. I think there's a little bug in VP changes. They shorten turns (30) by Era (-1 for each Era). But this is applied after game speed modifier. I think it should be before. Now the route lets say in Modern takes 25 turns (30-5). But in Marathon in will take 85 (30*3-5). I think it should be 75 ((30-5)*3).

You are my new hero! hehe.

 

[Mad Madigan]

Wow, I've played this game for years and never knew until just now how the trade route turns were calculated. I always assumed it was just distance*variable and then scaled for game length, but it's cool that it tries to account for 2 trade unit circuits with a min number of turns coded in.

Thanks, Infixo!

 

[BiteInTheMark]

The above are not true.
2. Extending TR range does not change existing routes.

Not the active one, but the future one. Or how is the modifier applied? How does it calculate the percentual value?

Please don't revert back to the old system of being able to send a crap ton of trade routes to the same city.

For some strange reason, I like the "one trade route to one city" idea. For me, this balances the system better than the distance thing (For me, trade units represents more the trade activity of the whole nation with a other nation, than the trade between 2 cities. And your not able to make one CS ally and send all units to this place.)
But I dislike the destruction of the trade unit at DoW. IRL, trade is mainly done by transport vehicles and slightly influenced by infrastructure and administration. While I still understand that investment in infrastructure and administration is lost, it is not that all vehicles suddenly explode. Do you think it would be a good idea, to let trade units appear 2 turns after DoW in their start city? Or give trade units to hostile nations a buff in yields, due to the risk of being plundered/destroyed at war? (Which would be based on the claim of Gazebo that risky trade routes have brought more than safe routes.)

Looking through that code is really fun. Can learn a ton of stuff. So.
1. The turns are only calculated when creating a route. The function that gives available routes doesn't do that. The code itself isn't complicated, so I could probably make another Lua for that and show it in the window.
2. The calculation of turns is little weird. It seems that initial idea of Firaxis was to simply get the length and divide it by route speed. And each route has to make 2 circuits. But it seems that short routes would cycle too often and they added a check that forces a route to last at least 30 turns (game speed adjusted). VP changes this a little and makes it shorter with every Era.
So, the worst case is when the route makes 2 circuits and still misses 2 turns to complete. Then it goes again and comes back after 14 turns. So, in summary it can last from 30 to 42 turns.
3. I think there's a little bug in VP changes. They shorten turns (30) by Era (-1 for each Era). But this is applied after game speed modifier. I think it should be before. Now the route lets say in Modern takes 25 turns (30-5). But in Marathon in will take 85 (30*3-5). I think it should be 75 ((30-5)*3).

Ok, that is interesting, and a bit irritating. Informations about the estimated turns would be very nice, especially playing as ottoman empire or any empire, which goes for CV. 42 turns instead of 30 turns would lead to a decrease of 30% for the ottoman empire UA.
I ask me if giving this information and with the restrictions recently made would create a whole new trade unit experience (searching the longest distance trade route with a length of 15 turns for one cycle for up to 15 trade units from different cities).
Or.... if it would be more simple to set trade routes to 30 turns and teleport the trade unit back to home town, if the unit has finished its 30 turns. (which I would prefer, it doesnt need to get too complicated, and this is much more better to balance than other solutions).

 

[Ziad]

@Infixo Explains why they're so long on Marathon lol

By the way, were city state mission influence rewards on Marathon reduced this patch? I'm getting values like vanilla (0-40 influence). I'm confused if that's intentional or not.

I got this result by using only the mod (via autoinstaller) and IGE (nothing else).

 

[Enginseer]

@Infixo Explains why they're so long on Marathon lol

By the way, were city state mission influence rewards on Marathon reduced this patch? I'm getting values like vanilla (0-40 influence). I'm confused if that's intentional or not.

I got this result by using only the mod (via autoinstaller) and IGE (nothing else).

I believe someone complained that CSD rewards on marathon rewarded too much...

 

[Ziad]

I believe someone complained that CSD rewards on marathon rewarded too much...

Oh were the influence amounts being tripled? If that's the case then it shouldn't work that way, but I've been getting 0-40 influence per quest pretty consistently. That's very low isn't it? They wouldn't be worth doing, but the other rewards from quest completion are still decent.

If the goal is to not form any friendly or alliance status with city states before emissaries, then it's definitely met cause not a single AI is friends with a CS in my current game lol

Also influence decay increases above a threshold (was it 100?) is still not applying on Marathon. I had 600 influence with a CS and it was still -0.67.

 

[MorphBer]

Looking through that code is really fun. Can learn a ton of stuff. So.
1. The turns are only calculated when creating a route. The function that gives available routes doesn't do that. The code itself isn't complicated, so I could probably make another Lua for that and show it in the window.
2. The calculation of turns is little weird. It seems that initial idea of Firaxis was to simply get the length and divide it by route speed. And each route has to make 2 circuits. But it seems that short routes would cycle too often and they added a check that forces a route to last at least 30 turns (game speed adjusted). VP changes this a little and makes it shorter with every Era.
So, the worst case is when the route makes 2 circuits and still misses 2 turns to complete. Then it goes again and comes back after 14 turns. So, in summary it can last from 30 to 42 turns.
3. I think there's a little bug in VP changes. They shorten turns (30) by Era (-1 for each Era). But this is applied after game speed modifier. I think it should be before. Now the route lets say in Modern takes 25 turns (30-5). But in Marathon in will take 85 (30*3-5). I think it should be 75 ((30-5)*3).

Thanks for the Info, I wish more details including formulas would be avaliable in civilopedia...

Any way you can include estimated lenght in the screen where you choose the destination?

You are absolutly right, that formula should be changed

 

[Gazebo]

Thanks for the Info, I wish more details including formulas would be avaliable in civilopedia...

Any way you can include estimated lenght in the screen where you choose the destination?

You are absolutly right, that formula should be changed

It’s not that easy. If you start messing with the trade route code it can cause a lot of problems with the unit pathing. I strongly discourage altering it.

G