New Beta Version - June 14th (6/14)

[Txurce]

I have to agree. We can't give the UA a big bonus to growing cities and then complain when people grow big cities. If the happiness system isn't allowing India to exploit its UA than an adjustment should be made. But I think we can adjust India's happiness specifically instead of necessarily changing the base system.

Remember that Gazebo is checking the luxury happiness mechanic. As others have noted, it feels off in its own regard. This would seemingly come first. And again, no civ -- including India -- is supposed to be able to grow an individual city to an absurd size. To me, India's UA guarantees that all its cities could be very big, just about no matter where they are. That's a major advantage, but I don't think it's meant to be unlimited.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Wrong. It is not linear.

Wasnt this the formula?
The necessary population for the rank yeah, but I cant remember any nonlinear aspect in your formula. Cant remember where you posted it.

Not a bug- it scales exponentially, but starts slow.

G

First, if its like this, the description is missleading, since some patches.
Second, together with the additional religion per game, this really feels underwhelming and kinda useless for any small or standard map.

 

[Stalker0]

And again, no civ -- including India -- is supposed to be able to grow an individual city to an absurd size.

Why not? If you have lots of farmland, got all the food buildings, big growth buildings....why not?

This is something I've grown increasingly concerned with in the happiness debate. The notion that there is a specific playstyle that everyone has to cater to to make the system work.

We have to be careful, its easy to sacrifice fun in the name of balance but that is a folly many designer's fall into. Just because something is "perfectly balanced" does not make it good.

Growing to that level already requires sacrifices in other areas, often significant ones. Its fine for the system to give the nudge and curb that somewhat...but its another to slap them down and effectively end the game because your happiness is so bad.

 

[pineappledan]

Remember that Gazebo is checking the luxury happiness mechanic. As others have noted, it feels off in its own regard. This would seemingly come first. And again, no civ -- including India -- is supposed to be able to grow an individual city to an absurd size. To me, India's UA guarantees that all its cities could be very big, just about no matter where they are. That's a major advantage, but I don't think it's meant to be unlimited.

This entire line of reasoning is so wrongheaded I'm flabbergasted.

First, it's based on an assumption that I prioritized growth. I didn't. I chose a civ with growth-based bonuses, and I was put in a high food starting point. That is all. I didn't forego specialists to work more farms. I did not send food via trade routes to any city, ever. I didn't select pantheons or beliefs which provide growth. Granted, I did go Tradition-->Fealty, but that isn't a particularly controversial policy choice for India. I also did build Harrappan Reservoirs in my cities (*gasp*), because that's India's UB.

Second, I wasn't really playing "tall". I had more land, cities, technologies, GNP and GDP than any other civ. I had 14 cities, covering enough land for 2 monopolies. not a small empire. You called this playing "Civ-City", which is funny to me. I wiped out 2 of my neighbours and was going domination until I couldn't handle my unhappiness anymore. You accuse me of doing the only thing that could possibly keep my empire together, focusing on infrastructure. Well, guilty as charged.

Third, this argument assumes that I deliberately broke the game by minmaxing something until the system punished me. That simply isn't the case; my capital grew that way because the mechanics of the game make it impossible NOT to grow. I never prioritized growth for growth's sake, and anyone saying so is simply putting words in my mouth.

If you want to make the argument that where I went wrong was playing India in the first place, then fine. You will have to concede, then, that the mechanics, as presented, make India unplayable. Full stop. You're arguing for a prescriptive style of gameplay which a) is a load of crap, and b) India is specifically designed to be unable to do.

 

[Txurce]

This entire line of reasoning is so wrongheaded I'm flabbergasted... is a load of crap, (etc).

You are hilarious when you start spluttering... and the post to which you are replying has nothing to do with your game.

Why not? If you have lots of farmland, got all the food buildings, big growth buildings....why not?

This is something I've grown increasingly concerned with in the happiness debate. The notion that there is a specific playstyle that everyone has to cater to to make the system work.

We have to be careful, its easy to sacrifice fun in the name of balance but that is a folly many designer's fall into. Just because something is "perfectly balanced" does not make it good.

Growing to that level already requires sacrifices in other areas, often significant ones. Its fine for the system to give the nudge and curb that somewhat...but its another to slap them down and effectively end the game because your happiness is so bad.

I argued for a relaxed happiness system for several patches, and my sole motivation was fun. I'd be among the last to want to sacrifice it for balance.

That said, I know you agree that the mod is built on balance, because you focus on it much more than I do. Probably no aspect of the game, pushed to an extreme, should be penalty-free, and that includes India (or anyone else) building a city to an absurd size. VP is not a mod to meant to be played absurdly. Just like there's a supply cap to limit monster warmongerers, a mechanic to punish excessive growth is also needed. I'm surprised you disagree with this.

To repeat, we have yet to factor the luxury happiness issue. It obviously applies here. If India, played to win a game of Civ rather than a game of Sims, still has happiness problems, then I'm all for making the appropriate adjustment.

 

[tu_79]

This entire line of reasoning is so wrongheaded I'm flabbergasted.

First, it's based on an assumption that I prioritized growth. I didn't. I chose a civ with growth-based bonuses, and I was put in a high food starting point. That is all. I didn't forego specialists to work more farms. I did not send food via trade routes to any city, ever. I didn't select pantheons or beliefs which provide growth. Granted, I did go Tradition-->Fealty, but that isn't a particularly controversial policy choice for India. I also did build Harrappan Reservoirs in my cities (*gasp*), because that's India's UB.

Second, I wasn't really playing "tall". I had more land, cities, technologies, GNP and GDP than any other civ. I had 14 cities, covering enough land for 2 monopolies. not a small empire. You called this playing "Civ-City", which is funny to me. I wiped out 2 of my neighbours and was going domination until I couldn't handle my unhappiness anymore. You accuse me of doing the only thing that could possibly keep my empire together, focusing on infrastructure. Well, guilty as charged.

Third, this argument assumes that I deliberately broke the game by minmaxing something until the system punished me. That simply isn't the case; my capital grew that way because the mechanics of the game make it impossible NOT to grow. I never prioritized growth for growth's sake, and anyone saying so is simply putting words in my mouth.

If you want to make the argument that where I went wrong was playing India in the first place, then fine. You will have to concede, then, that the mechanics, as presented, make India unplayable. Full stop. You're arguing for a prescriptive style of gameplay which a) is a load of crap, and b) India is specifically designed to be unable to do.

And yet you could replace some farms for villages and reduce your food production. You could even have some unemployed workers to avoid working on food tiles. But you decide to keep growing. You claim you did not do anything special for growing, yet your capital is full of farms.

I may agree better with Stalker0, in regards to the fun factor. If a player wants to focus on growth and get yields from the buildings that scale on population, let it be, but something has to be sacrificed.

 

[ashendashin]

This entire line of reasoning is so wrongheaded I'm flabbergasted.

First, it's based on an assumption that I prioritized growth. I didn't. I chose a civ with growth-based bonuses, and I was put in a high food starting point. That is all. I didn't forego specialists to work more farms. I did not send food via trade routes to any city, ever. I didn't select pantheons or beliefs which provide growth. Granted, I did go Tradition-->Fealty, but that isn't a particularly controversial policy choice for India. I also did build Harrappan Reservoirs in my cities (*gasp*), because that's India's UB.

Second, I wasn't really playing "tall". I had more land, cities, technologies, GNP and GDP than any other civ. I had 14 cities, covering enough land for 2 monopolies. not a small empire. You called this playing "Civ-City", which is funny to me. I wiped out 2 of my neighbours and was going domination until I couldn't handle my unhappiness anymore. You accuse me of doing the only thing that could possibly keep my empire together, focusing on infrastructure. Well, guilty as charged.

Third, this argument assumes that I deliberately broke the game by minmaxing something until the system punished me. That simply isn't the case; my capital grew that way because the mechanics of the game make it impossible NOT to grow. I never prioritized growth for growth's sake, and anyone saying so is simply putting words in my mouth.

If you want to make the argument that where I went wrong was playing India in the first place, then fine. You will have to concede, then, that the mechanics, as presented, make India unplayable. Full stop. You're arguing for a prescriptive style of gameplay which a) is a load of crap, and b) India is specifically designed to be unable to do.

To avoid misunderstandings, my own comment on high growth was specifically in response to ElliotS.

Is India's UA really that bad? If they're subject to getting potentially screwed by a high food start then that creates something of a parallel to a civ like the Aztecs not having any neighbors to exploit. Too much growth and your citizens become unhappy-what's the problem? India has nothing else going for it? Maybe your religion wasn't built well to take advantage of your pop or there simply isn't a viable way to make it work? Unhappiness should be high for stupidly large cities. If exploiting the extra citizens is impossible due to it then that's a problem of its own.

 

[pineappledan]

And yet you could replace some farms for villages and reduce your food production. You could even have some unemployed workers to avoid working on food tiles. But you decide to keep growing. You claim you did not do anything special for growing, yet your capital is full of farms.

Why is that even entertained as a reasonable line of thinking? I didn't replace my farms because they were built before Currency, and it is (or it should be) a better use of my worker's turns to build improvements throughout the rest of the empire, rather than engaging in self-sabotage by ripping up old tiles so I don't get too much food. It's so incredibly weird that people seem to be asking for a punishment for building large, powerful cities. You are justifying my loss essentially by saying I didn't shoot myself in the foot enough times; perhaps if I had played worse, misallocated resources more, intentionally added inefficiencies to my play style, then I wouldn't have been forced to quit.

Is this seriously how people want the game to go down? India has to work labourers and rip up farms, because it's playing against a smiley face in the top ribbon, rather than other civs?

EDIT: Also, I get that you want some rubberbanding in the game, but why would you have rubberbanding on city management, such that if someone is playing a comp-stomp the rubberbands full-on strangle them? Are we banning comp-stomps as a legitimate way to enjoy VP?

 

[chicorbeef]

And yet you could replace some farms for villages and reduce your food production. You could even have some unemployed workers to avoid working on food tiles. But you decide to keep growing. You claim you did not do anything special for growing, yet your capital is full of farms.

He built farms, because he picked Cathedrals as one of his beliefs/is going for a Golden Age strategy and has the Harappan Reservoir, and building farms where they are reasonable is what you do when you have those synergies and have a start like this in a Tradition capital as India. He is also working all the other good tiles/specialists he can. I don't see why he should go out of his way to screw over the synergies he built.

India did not have this honey trap mechanic before, it's only now that we've got problems. The way he's playing India is pretty much how India has always been played, and it was not OP before.

I argued for a relaxed happiness system for several patches, and my sole motivation was fun. I'd be among the last to want to sacrifice it for balance.

That said, I know you agree that the mod is built on balance, because you focus on it much more than I do. Probably no aspect of the game, pushed to an extreme, should be penalty-free, and that includes India (or anyone else) building a city to an absurd size. VP is not a mod to meant to be played absurdly. Just like there's a supply cap to limit monster warmongerers, a mechanic to punish excessive growth is also needed. I'm surprised you disagree with this.

To repeat, we have yet to factor the luxury happiness issue. It obviously applies here. If India, played to win a game of Civ rather than a game of Sims, still has happiness problems, then I'm all for making the appropriate adjustment.

I think we're disagreeing on what's reasonable and what's not. For me, the way he played is absolutely reasonable. 46 population on Turn 288 in a Tradition capital as India on a floodplains start with Fealty sounds reasonable to me. He played reasonably and got screwed.

Excessive growth does not really need to be punished further because with the changes in winter that purged percent food, made it take extra food to grow, and the specialist food changes all limited growth. I used to be able to grow Indian capitals to 70+ pop by this turn on a build like this, that was absurd. This is reasonable to me.

If you're going to insist on punishing Growth even further, then policies like Urbanization and Rationalism growth policies and other late-game growth policies will become even weaker than they are already.

I think India should probably get a reduction to the population modifier to unhappiness if this is going to be how it is.

 

[ashendashin]

Why is that even entertained as a reasonable line of thinking?

"Maybe build some villages with plumbing so our citizens don't fill the streets with sh-"
"Are you insane?! I want our markets full to bursting! No citizen should have to make a living outside of our glorious city!"

Couldn't help myself. I will reiterate that the way happiness works isn't necessarily the only problem here, though.

 

[pineappledan]

"Maybe build some villages with plumbing so our citizens don't fill the streets with sh-"
"Are you insane?! I want our markets full to bursting! No citizen should have to make a living outside of our glorious city!"

Well, this is India we are talking about. Rivers of poop are, at this point, basically a cultural touchstone. It doesn't even seem to matter if they build toilets and latrines

 

[Gazebo]

Before everyone goes crazy, let's remember that this is a happiness beta - I want feedback like @pineappledan 's more than I want the 'Gazebo this is perfect never change' feedback, as we just made some big changes to the formulas for needs.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Probably no aspect of the game, pushed to an extreme, should be penalty-free, and that includes India (or anyone else) building a city to an absurd size. VP is not a mod to meant to be played absurdly. Just like there's a supply cap to limit monster warmongerers, a mechanic to punish excessive growth is also needed. I'm surprised you disagree with this.

I think where we differ on is the notion that Growth is penalty-free. Are there scenarios of the game that are basically penalty-free that have to curbed? Absolutely, expansion is one notion. The cost of a new city (a settler) is a drop in the bucket compared to the yields that city can provide. Ergo without some measure of control, expansion to the extreme would be the dominant method of play. And so we have curbs on expansion.

I don't feel the same way about growth. Growth gives yields, but those yields are not that immense compared to what specialists and infrastructure can provide. Further, growth is exponentially limiting, you have to get more and more food to maintain a static growth rate. So to maintain a strong growth you have to keep dedicating your city more into food, and away from other yields. So growth in many ways is already self-limiting, it does not require a strong curbing mechanic. If a player wants to focus his entire empire on the biggest capital he can possibly get.....he is in no way going to automatically win the game. In fact I would argue he is not playing optimally, that much focus on growth is actually weaker than alternate strategies.

 

[Txurce]

I think we're disagreeing on what's reasonable and what's not. For me, the way he played is absolutely reasonable. 46 population on Turn 288 in a Tradition capital as India on a floodplains start with Fealty sounds reasonable to me. He played reasonably and got screwed.

Excessive growth does not really need to be punished further because with the changes in winter that purged percent food, made it take extra food to grow, and the specialist food changes all limited growth. I used to be able to grow Indian capitals to 70+ pop by this turn on a build like this, that was absurd. This is reasonable to me.

If you're going to insist on punishing Growth even further, then policies like Urbanization and Rationalism growth policies and other late-game growth policies will become even weaker than they are already.

I think India should probably get a reduction to the population modifier to unhappiness if this is going to be how it is.

46 pop in t288 sounds high to me, but that's neither here nor there. I don't know what's reasonable with India.

As to "If you're going to insist on punishing Growth even further..." I don't know what you mean. With regard to whether growth should be checked...

I think where we differ on is the notion that Growth is penalty-free. Are there scenarios of the game that are basically penalty-free that have to curbed? Absolutely, expansion is one notion. The cost of a new city (a settler) is a drop in the bucket compared to the yields that city can provide. Ergo without some measure of control, expansion to the extreme would be the dominant method of play. And so we have curbs on expansion.

I don't feel the same way about growth. Growth gives yields, but those yields are not that immense compared to what specialists and infrastructure can provide. Further, growth is exponentially limiting, you have to get more and more food to maintain a static growth rate. So to maintain a strong growth you have to keep dedicating your city more into food, and away from other yields. So growth in many ways is already self-limiting, it does not require a strong curbing mechanic. If a player wants to focus his entire empire on the biggest capital he can possibly get.....he is in no way going to automatically win the game. In fact I would argue he is not playing optimally, that much focus on growth is actually weaker than alternate strategies.

Optimal growth allows you to fill every possible specialist slots and use every available hammer. If all your cities are really big, and can do all that, you are in too good a shape, in my opinion. That's why size has had a happiness penalty at least since Civ 2.

What I just described is really hard to achieve, but it would be a lot easier with India. At what point does India need to be reined in? Somewhere shy of the optimal scenario I described. Where is that? I'm sure we'll get an idea from more people playing with India, and Gazebo's tests.

 

[Stalker0]

At what point does India need to be reined in? Somewhere shy of the optimal scenario I described.

My note here would be that if India's growth pushes it into the optimal scenario of growth, where its population bonuses are stronger than the equivalent bonuses that other Civs get....than that to me would represent a need to nerf India, instead of bashing it down with the hard club of the happiness system.

That said I recognize more testing is needed to determine if changes are needed. My comments are more to address a growing concern I see that some people are comfortable using the happiness system to bash down any playstyle that doesn't quite fit into the box. For example, it kills me inside every time people say "well you should check no growth on your cities". The idea that the game is telling you to stop collecting your yields is extremely anathema to what 4x games represent.

 

[pineappledan]

My note here would be that if India's growth pushes it into the optimal scenario of growth, where its population bonuses are stronger than the equivalent bonuses that other Civs get....than that to me would represent a need to nerf India, instead of bashing it down with the hard club of the happiness system.

I agree.

My note here is that "optimal scenario of growth" is a quaint pet theory until it can be demonstrated that it translates into winning games.

no civ -- including India -- is supposed to be able to grow an individual city to an absurd size.

Probably no aspect of the game, pushed to an extreme, should be penalty-free, and that includes India (or anyone else) building a city to an absurd size.

You keep saying the same thing over and over again, so I will simply keep refuting you over and over again: 46 pop with India isn't overly absurd, and my game did not involve me doing anything "absurd". I did not push any envelopes on growth, but I did not AVOID growth either. Several other users have noted similar games where they reached 40 pop with civs other than India, and had similar issues.

I haven't read of other people playing well-executed games going tall who are complaining about happiness.

if you're playing on autopilot, pretending it's SimCiv, then you ought to have problems.

I take issue with the idea that playing badly should be rewarded. We have different ideas about what that means, apparently. I don't think there is any middle ground to be found between your belief that large cities with lots of buildings and wonders are "absurd".

To my mind, large cities with strong infrastructure and wonders should be generating unhappiness in OTHER people's cities. Indeed, the current city revolt system demonstrates @Gazebo's assumption that the outlying, smaller cities with weaker infrastructure are expected to be the sources of unhappiness. My playthrough clearly demonstrates that the opposite can be true. Capitals, especially capitals of growth-centric civs generate more unhappiness than outlying cities, and no amount of cities breaking away will fix your central happiness drain in that situation.

 

[tu_79]

"I did nothing special for growing..."
"I did not AVOID growth either..."

Yet, you have Tradition (extra growth), Fealty (extra food), Harapan Reservoir (extra growth), tens of WORKED farms in your capital (by that time I'm happy with working a couple of farms). And I fear to ask, Rationalism? Temple of Artemis? Mandirs? Trade routes to influenced civs? 400 food production is no joke.

And when I point out that there are too many farms being worked:
"It synergizes with India uniques". "Cathedrals were built".
"I don't want to break down farms to build villages" (WTH?)
Sorry, but I don't buy it. I may understand a new player being fooled by the growth trap of India, not you.

So, in the end, it's just that you dislike to have happiness limits to growth. Traditionally, civ games were all about increasing yields in every option, and there was just an opportunity cost. The cost of focusing on growth was: getting little progress during a few turns, and then the extra work force made up quickly for the lost yields. Without a happiness mechanic controling population, growth would be the only valid strategy. Even in vanilla, with a happiness mechanic going on, growth+science was the best strategy. VP so far is succeeding at avoiding best winning strategies.
Yes, you could build bigger cities a year ago, but G made a big change to food and specialists because these were overperforming, then to happiness (trying to reduce happiness swings, and this is a WIP). If you undo the changes we'll be back where we were a year ago.

It could be that the limits are too tight right now. It could be. But your game is not a proof for me. When you have so big bonuses for growing, there are two things that can be done first:
1. Work on fewer food tiles. You don't need to work on many of them since you grow so fast, so you can release some citizens for working other things (like villages, don't tell me again you are already working all the specialists available).
or
2. Get yourself a reliable source of happiness, like Pacifism (wait, Gandhi?), faith buying great admirals or great musicians, or happiness per great works (artistry). And only then let your cities grow.
If these things were done and yet your city is unhappy, then I'd agree the happiness limit is too tight.

If you want to behave like real India, maybe you should let an european colonial country invade your fragmented civ, so it can be a big country again under a foreign flag.

 

[inzlinger]

"I did nothing special for growing..."
"I did not AVOID growth either..."

Yet, you have Tradition (extra growth), Fealty (extra food), Harapan Reservoir (extra growth), tens of WORKED farms in your capital (by that time I'm happy with working a couple of farms). And I fear to ask, Rationalism? Temple of Artemis? Mandirs? Trade routes to influenced civs? 400 food production is no joke.

And when I point out that there are too many farms being worked:
"It synergizes with India uniques". "Cathedrals were built".
"I don't want to break down farms to build villages" (WTH?)
Sorry, but I don't buy it. I may understand a new player being fooled by the growth trap of India, not you.

So, in the end, it's just that you dislike to have happiness limits to growth. Traditionally, civ games were all about increasing yields in every option, and there was just an opportunity cost. The cost of focusing on growth was: getting little progress during a few turns, and then the extra work force made up quickly for the lost yields. Without a happiness mechanic controling population, growth would be the only valid strategy. Even in vanilla, with a happiness mechanic going on, growth+science was the best strategy. VP so far is succeeding at avoiding best winning strategies.
Yes, you could build bigger cities a year ago, but G made a big change to food and specialists because these were overperforming, then to happiness (trying to reduce happiness swings, and this is a WIP). If you undo the changes we'll be back where we were a year ago.

It could be that the limits are too tight right now. It could be. But your game is not a proof for me. When you have so big bonuses for growing, there are two things that can be done first:
1. Work on fewer food tiles. You don't need to work on many of them since you grow so fast, so you can release some citizens for working other things (like villages, don't tell me again you are already working all the specialists available).
or
2. Get yourself a reliable source of happiness, like Pacifism (wait, Gandhi?), faith buying great admirals or great musicians, or happiness per great works (artistry). And only then let your cities grow.
If these things were done and yet your city is unhappy, then I'd agree the happiness limit is too tight.

If you want to behave like real India, maybe you should let an european colonial country invade your fragmented civ, so it can be a big country again under a foreign flag.

I don't believe, you get the problem: With the current patch, there is only a moderate reward for growing but a very hard penality. You have to stop the growth of your capital at 40, otherwise you will get unhappiness you couldn't counter. This may be the best solution for the most civs and you argued how to do this. But if your civ is predestined for growth like india, why anyone should play india?

 

[Stalker0]

I don't believe, you get the problem: With the current patch, there is only a moderate reward for growing but a very hard penality. You have to stop the growth of your capital at 40, otherwise you will get unhappiness you couldn't counter. This may be the best solution for the most civs and you argued how to do this. But if your civ is predestined for growth like india, why anyone should play india?

What Tu is suggesting is that this game was not a standard India example, that it was in fact a play that was exceptionally focused on growth. In other words, there was nothing predestined about this play, it was "crazily" focused on growth, and paid the price for that.

 

[ashendashin]

What Tu is suggesting is that this game was not a standard India example, that it was in fact a play that was exceptionally focused on growth. In other words, there was nothing predestined about this play, it was "crazily" focused on growth, and paid the price for that.

There's also the point on religion. I'm still curious as to whether or not it's possible to support a large pop with the right beliefs. India IS built to exploit that, after all.