New Beta Version - October 10th (10/10)

[John.B.C]

I know I’m painting a worst case picture but this actually happened to me before.

My last game with India (immortal, tradition, four cities), had me hitting the roof several times, but I managed to stay a float (from time to time getting a negative score of one or two) even though I was declared war by my neighbours pretty much throughout the whole game. This meant that I was quite aware of the supply limit and had it managed through building the required buildings, and planting GG's (I didn't manage to get any wonders giving supply either)

And well yeah, my army was quite small but very effective.

So my first few general impression from how WW works has me thinking that you're indeed painting a worst case scenario in your head. I really love the new WW mechanics, it's an truly elegant solution to the problem of abuse by killing hordes of units without losing any yourself (To my experience this was often, and in many situations an easy thing to achieve against the AI.). I think this to be a positive change towards an overall more fun game play.

 

[CrazyG]

I think a penalty for killing offsets the various rewards for killing a unit in the game in a pretty elegant way.

 

[CCruise]

Think of it this way. In ancient times, people had to stop warring because people had to get back to work during the growing seasons. In modern times, the loss of life creates concerns and protests.

Even when your killing units, you are still losing troops. You are still putting troops in harms way, and committing them to military action. That keeps them away from the fields (ancient concern) and puts them in danger (modern time). Its obviously better to be winning than losing, but loses still add up regardless.

If it were that way, how can the USA always have a second war going while the previous one is shaping up to be finished.. and that since WW2?

Secondly about todays warfare. You know about drone strikes right? They don't need people in the action or very little. An example of this is Irak, where 1.5 million Iraki souls lost their lifes and only a few thousand US soldiers died. The US, GB, FR, IL are definitly not war-weary but Irak, Afghanistan, Syria and all the others are.

 

[pineappledan]

If it were that way, how can the USA always have a second war going while the previous one is shaping up to be finished? Since WW2!

VP hasn't properly modelled how all war weariness was suspended by America when it murdered all those people for slightly cheaper pineapples.

2/10. Wake me up when we have a 'price of pineapples' mechanic

 

[Gazebo]

If it were that way, how can the USA always have a second war going while the previous one is shaping up to be finished.. and that since WW2?

Secondly about todays warfare. You know about drone strikes right? They don't need people in the action or very little. An example of this is Irak, where 1.5 million Iraki souls lost their lifes and only a few thousand US soldiers died. The US, GB, FR, IL are definitly not war-weary but Irak, Afghanistan, Syria and all the others are.

The fact that a small portion of American lives are being lost, and there’s no draft, makes modern American warfare a bit out of the norm. But look at Vietnam. American losses were tiny compared to Vietnamese deaths, yet you had open protests at home here because of the draft. So it can happen.

G

 

[pineappledan]

The fact that a small portion of American lives are being lost, and there’s no draft, makes modern American warfare a bit out of the norm. But look at Vietnam. American losses were tiny compared to Vietnamese deaths, yet you had open protests at home here because of the draft. So it can happen.

That’s cause Americans realized they went to war for the wrong reasons. They went to fight communism, but they should have gone for the fruit.

 

[matlajs]

What if you’re constantly the target of chain brokered wars such that it’s one after another, where even if one AI peaces out as soon as is possible, you’re already starting to feel the effects of WW from the next war before previous WW has worn off.

IIRC WW is calculated separately for each war. So if you get attacked by another civ, while peace out with a 1 one, you should go 0 WW first.

 

[Gazebo]

IIRC WW is calculated separately for each war. So if you get attacked by another civ, while peace out with a 1 one, you should go 0 WW first.

You take the highest war weariness value, and when you are declare on your WW is immediately halved.

G

 

[Aristos]

If people find the new solution "immersion breaking" (50% of unit killing WM against the player), then that has an easy (elegant?) solution: make WM points proportional to HPs lost for everyone; that way, we really simulate losses, both partial and total, and without resorting to an arbitrary percentage...

Shouldn't be hard to implement in code, right G @Gazebo ?

 

[Guynemer]

Somewhat tangential to this discussion, what effect (if any) does pillaging tile improvements have on WW? Or pillaging trade routes? If that does create WW for the pillagees, does it also transfer 50% to the pillagers?

 

[pza]

If people find the new solution "immersion breaking" (50% of unit killing WM against the player), then that has an easy (elegant?) solution: make WM points proportional to HPs lost for everyone; that way, we really simulate losses, both partial and total, and without resorting to an arbitrary percentage...

Shouldn't be hard to implement in code, right G @Gazebo ?

thats so unnecessary.... seriously. like if there was realism when fighting gattling gun vs pikemen. and it nerfs melee units.

this is a made up problem and i'm seriously concerned about why this community is discussing realism of arbitrary game mechanics, instead of what really are the big hitters, like the new player experience, the current state of happiness, balance, you name it. but this mimimi is really disproportionate. rant over.

 

[infidel88]

I don't think there was much war weariness in Spain when they were slaughtering Incas, Mayas and others. War weariness is rather modern invention. I would dare to say for plenty of civs lack of war was causing boredom.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I don't think there was much war weariness in Spain when they were slaughtering Incas, Mayas and others. War weariness is rather modern invention. I would dare to say for plenty of civs lack of war was causing boredom.

I don't think war weariness is supposed to represent "real life war weariness", which is a modern interpretation of war.
As a game mecanics, war weariness represent an exhaustion of some ressource, like supply or stability of the empire (represented by happiness), when war last too long.
The fact that a long war can induce some rebellion (which happens at -20 happiness) is quite realistic: war is a time where allegiance of lords are likely to change.

I agree that the war weariness being linked to damage done to the ennemy is quite gamey.
But a more realistic approach (war weariness linked to the distance of each unit to your cities), is more difficultly implementable.
(unless Gazebo suddently says "hey, now that you talk about it, we could totally do that, I've already coded some of the function for doing X").

EDIT: In fact, I would be in favor of renaming War Weariness into "political unstability", so that it no longer means "my citizens are pacifists"

EDIT to EDIT: Nevermind, gaining "political unstability" by killing ennemy units is even more stupid than gaining war weariness. So scrap the renaming idea.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

It was said, the mechanic was integrated to stop too fast domination wins. Which is a fine thing.
But it is also hitting nations which never make any attempt to go for domination, and now everyone comes with realism to explain, why it's OK, if nations, which were not the target of the change, also get greatly hit by it.

But why do we create a new mechanic, if warmongers are greatly able to reduce the impact of it by WW reductions?

 

[tu_79]

It was said, the mechanic was integrated to stop too fast domination wins. Which is a fine thing.
But it is also hitting nations which never make any attempt to go for domination, and now everyone comes with realism to explain, why it's OK, if nations, which were not the target of the change, also get greatly hit by it.

But why do we create a new mechanic, if warmongers are greatly able to reduce the impact of it by WW reductions?

It's a concern we share. It is left to be seen if warmongers with ww reductions are effectively delayed. Otherwise, it means that ww is still low. Or that warmongers should not have ww reduction, but we need further testing.

 

[Stalker0]

It's a concern we share. It is left to be seen if warmongers with ww reductions are effectively delayed. Otherwise, it means that ww is still low. Or that warmongers should not have ww reduction, but we need further testing.

Note I have these concerns as well, but G assured me he checked for the issue in initial tests and didn’t see the problem occur, so it’s worth testing, talking about it won’t change it at this point

 

[Txurce]

I took a break from posting on VP because the toxicity all too often makes me just as toxic... but Gazebo's recent VIP nominations for reports on the 10/10 happiness changes shamed me into writing. I just finished an Emperor game where the happiness swings were no bigger than 30, and never spiraled. This seems very workable to me, and I think the remaining task is relative fine-tuning.

I have had a very hard time with happiness in the Industrial for a long time now, mainly because of too much growth. In this game I used stop-growth and wealth for long stretches in order to stay competitive, and eventually came out of it with level 2 tenets. I wish I had a better sense of when to stop growing, though. For example, at game’s end I was 40+ happy, with some distress at 5 or 6. Earlier, that would have put me at -20 or more… so when do I take the distress level seriously? Happiness guides would be greatly improved if they addressed how to read danger signs in a timely manner.

I won a DV without Statecraft by vassalizing 3-4 civs. I did this with Carthage and a consistently low-ranking military: two early naval wars for vassalization, and then vassalizing 2 civs who were afraid of me. I realized early on that I had effectively clinched the game in the Renaissance unless a vassal demanded freedom, so I let the biggest one go. That was the Shoshone, who were already the score leader.

I’m a fan of vassalage as is, but the Shoshone were ahead of me in tech, SP’s and military. They may have wanted the effective DP vis a vis their neighbor, the Zulu. Likewise, Japan was my other “afraid” vassal, and remained so despite eventually topping me in culture and techs, plus a huge lead in military. What Japan did do, though, is demand their freedom one turn before the UN vote! As a result I needed to flip a Shoshone CS at the last moment to eke out a 49-47 victory.

Recapping, the happiness changes strike me as a major improvement, and vassalage perhaps benefiting from minor adjustments re: asking for freedom, and "afraid" levels.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

This is by far the detailed report about this version, and it focuses on the concerns of happiness and vasselage. So Iam sorry but I have to milk the cow:
1) How many non-puppet cities did you have? 2) Did those happiness swing happen in one turn? After you have researched a tech?
3) How did you know it was by too much growth and not by other circumstances?
4) How big were your cities at entering industrial age, when happiness swing happened, at end of game (turn/techs?)
5) Were you leading in tech, some times mostly or all time?

Now for the vasselage part:
6) You were able to vassel 2 other nations even they were as strong as you or even stronger than you?
7) did you think the ability to do that was justified?
8) How much impact did the yields by the volunteer vassels had to your empire?
9) Do you think you were able to win the game that way (that easy) without the volunteer vassals?
10) do you think the volunteer vassels could have won the game or at least denied you the win, if they didn't had accepted you as master? (or asking earlier for freedom?)

Iam sorry for the wall, but I think a lot of people are interested in.this.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I want to note something about the happiness discussion.
A friend of mine have played the second game in this version and he stopped playing those 2 matches cause of frustration by happiness.
He said: "I've recently played a game with Babylon. After some time, I got strong happiness problems. I focused the happiness buildings, bought luxuries, not too much population, no war. Where is my error?“

I asked him, if he had used the stop growth button and if he know about the saved median mechanic. His answer:
"Did you explain that to me? If not, I have no idea how I should know that."

I will check his save at Monday. But independent of the analysis, the clue is his answer.
How are newbies supposed to know the save median mechanic? How are they able to know such hidden, not intuitive game mechanic?

 

[Txurce]

This is by far the detailed report about this version, and it focuses on the concerns of happiness and vasselage. So Iam sorry but I have to milk the cow:
1) How many non-puppet cities did you have? 2) Did those happiness swing happen in one turn? After you have researched a tech?
3) How did you know it was by too much growth and not by other circumstances?
4) How big were your cities at entering industrial age, when happiness swing happened, at end of game (turn/techs?)
5) Were you leading in tech, some times mostly or all time?

Now for the vasselage part:
6) You were able to vassel 2 other nations even they were as strong as you or even stronger than you?
7) did you think the ability to do that was justified?
8) How much impact did the yields by the volunteer vassels had to your empire?
9) Do you think you were able to win the game that way (that easy) without the volunteer vassals?
10) do you think the volunteer vassels could have won the game or at least denied you the win, if they didn't had accepted you as master? (or asking earlier for freedom?)

Iam sorry for the wall, but I think a lot of people are interested in.this.

1. 12. No puppets until the Mongol capital near the end.
2. The happiness swings I mentioned hapened in one turn. There were never two big swings in a row. It wasn't always after researching a tech — losing trade luxuries had a much more obvious effect.
3. It happens every single game I play, despite having most-to-all appropriate buildings. I stopped growth and switched to wealth, and the situation stabilized. Getting cocky, I let my cities grow again, and agin I crashed. Lesson learned until the Freedom level 2 tenets solidified major happiness.
4. All except the capital less than 20, a few under 15, circa Industrial start. About the same size for the rest of the game (exceptions 28, 28, 21) mostly due to stop-growth.
5. I was second in tech most of the game.
6. I vassalized 2 via conquest (3 briefly) and 2 by demanding it when both were afraid.
7. The key to me is not whether I should be able to vassalize a civ, but what makes a civ afraid. In my case, it wasn't my military and, in the case of the Shoshone, it wasn't anything obvious. Is it that I successfully demand tribute? Defeat other civs? Or as I mentioned in my prior post, that the Shoshone saw a dilomatic advantage (implicit DP) by becoming my vassal? My gut says that civs become afraid a buit too easily — but I have no idea how "afraid" status is determined, and may conclude it's fine as is, if I knew.
8. Vassalization raised me a notch on the scoreboard. It did not feel hugely significant. The biggest benefit was peace.
9. In this case I would have lost the DV without the vassals, but keep in mind I skipped Statecraft knowing I had them. It wasn't easy, but might have been had I kept the Shoshone longer. (The visuals of the DoW/peace bug also influenced me to let them go, so the Zulus could properly fight them!)
10. I took Freedom because the Shoshone had it, and keeping the peace with them was paramount for me. The 3 defeated vassals could have denied me the win by demanding independence, but at the price of elimination. Japan is the one that didn't make sense... and they demanded their freedom a turn before the vote. I can't stress how much I enjoyed that. If I hadn't had 4 ambassadors next to Singapore as insurance, I would have lost the DV to the Shoshone, who were deadlocked with Japan for a CV, and en route to a runaway SV.