New Beta Version - October 23rd (10-23)

[pineappledan]

In that case, I’d like to point out that Rome’s horrid UA interaction with stealing UNWs and UBs has been here for almost a year now, and is considered “stable”.

I’m ecstatic about the addition of the process modifier, yes. I’m over the moon for that. The luxury UI addition and the continued naval combat improvements are fantastic. This is an entirely mixed bag update for me though.

the problem with plants isn’t the yields on terrain per se, it’s that yields on terrain only affect 3 tile types now: riverside, plains, and grass. The variability and lack of utility for, say, a tundra start, or a coastal cov, is too much.

And, as Ridjack said, if the AI is electing to work specialists or GP tiles or UIs in the late game instead, isn't that good? Why do Farms need to be worked in the late game?

 

[Moi Magnus]

And, as Ridjack said, if the AI is electing to work specialists or GP tiles or UIs in the late game instead, isn't that good? Why do Farms need to be worked in the late game?

I feel like working farms (or more generally, working "normal tiles") should be a viable strategy in the late game, assuming you invested toward this. Maybe the new version of agribusiness is too good at it, or too cheap for what it does and is a no-brainier, but I like the possibility of making a no-specialist games (and I like the possibility of having a city 100% specialists too).

In fact, I would prefer if Agribusiness managed to find a niche somewhere, so that it does not just "increase the number of yields, participating to yield inflation", but rather "make a kind of city development previously non-viable now viable".

[The criticizes on how it affect the balance of farms with respects to mines, forests, sea ... is fair, though.]

 

[Gazebo]

Is this actually a problem, though? They go unworked by me, too - mostly because they get deleted and replaced by villages, GPTIs, unique improvements and the like. Farms have always been the absolute bottom-tier improvement in my eyes, but they do mostly do the one thing they need to do, which is get more food when you need it.

I don't actually have an opinion on this so far, just a bit of Devil's Advocacy.

So the bottom-tier improvement getting a steroid in the late game, right when its nigh-useless...is a problem? Agribusiness is a significant investment, and there are a lot of other tiles and specialists competing for use at this point in the game. I don't see the issue.

In that case, I’d like to point out that Rome’s horrid UA interaction with stealing UNWs and UBs has been here for almost a year now, and is considered “stable”.

I’m ecstatic about the addition of the process modifier, yes. I’m over the moon for that. The luxury UI addition and the continued naval combat improvements are fantastic. This is an entirely mixed bag update for me though.

the problem with plants isn’t the yields on terrain per se, it’s that yields on terrain only affect 3 tile types now: riverside, plains, and grass. The variability and lack of utility for, say, a tundra start, or a coastal cov, is too much.

And, as Ridjack said, if the AI is electing to work specialists or GP tiles or UIs in the late game instead, isn't that good? Why do Farms need to be worked in the late game?

Rome's UNW interaction is not really an issue unless you're running - say - modmods with a bunch of UNWs. And even then, I gave you code at the time to disable UNW theft, so what's the issue here? I can't design VP for modmod balance, and I'm not going to, sorry.

If people find issue with what the 4 terrain-dependent plants offer they can run your modmod - for myself, and for testing purposes, I've gone back and forth on the topic, and ultimately I feel that there is enough variety at that point in the game to make meaningful choices.

For farms, I'll ask you this - is it not odd to you that farms and pastures go unworked in the modern era? It's not like the modern real world is devoid of enormous farms and pastures today. Farms, if maintained into the modern era, should be rewarded with a sizable yield bump that makes them competitive with other tiles and improvements. If 3/3 is too much we can reduce, but testing didn't show it to be all that out of step with other tile yields of the same era (especially considering the opportunity cost of the Agribusiness).

G

 

[Stalker0]

My notes inline.

AI no longer gets production bonuses towards civilian units, nor an era bonus towards world wonders
--G does this also include Diplomatic Units (I know you had mentioned that). I will say this is a pretty big one that people shouldn't overlook. It means AI settler building will be slower, and will have a big impact to late game world wonders.

UI
Added WLTKD resource trigger info to trade panel for luxury trade info
--Wonderful!

Balance

Espionage
Rigging Elections can level up spies; bonus influence now scales exponentially with era
--Awesome!

Trade
Changed Science/Culture from CS routes to Ally only, dropped base valuation by 1
--I think the 1 value drop makes sense. The ally only I'm less in favor off, the friend bonuses are not that great right now for TR, its the ally bonuses that have always been really strong.

Buildings

Coal Refinery now a Refinery - grants +1 iron and coal (was +3 coal)
--I think this is a decent change. Ensures minimums of both, also doesn't guarantee you "comfortable" amounts of either. I do still think strategic should be pushed after sometimes, so I think this change will help with that.

Agribusiness - revamped; now +3 Gold/Production on all Farms and Pastures (removed food); Food Process in city is 15% more efficient at converting hammers to production (and 15% more effective at combating distress)
--First, I thank G for taking our concerns around the Agribusiness seriously. On the one hand, I do think these changes make the building much more competitive, I will certainly build this building more often. On the other, I can see PADs concerns here...and I will ask the question, is this the best way to go? If the main intention is a laser focus on farms...than this change makes a good amount of sense. If you wanted to give PADs concern about UTIs some adjustment, maybe the building could also give +1 g/+1 p to all GPTI and UTIs (or something). However, if the focus is just making the building more competitive (and giving food more to do in general), I still like the concept of converting food into gold more. It address farms, towns, natural wonders that are food focused, ITRs....everything that is food focused gets some love with that kind of change instead of just farms.

So I still throw that back in the ring. That said, I do not think this is a "bad change", I think its moving in the right direction. Whether its the "best change" I think is still worth a debate.

Factory - bumped to +2p per Factory (was +1)
--We are getting there!
Internal Trade Route buff buildings:
Overall - moved bonuses a little bit earlier to help make them a little more competitive
Market/Bazaar - removed +2 food
Lighthouse/Runestone now +4/+6 food from ITR
Giving coastal cities an early utility bump will be good for balance
Workshop ITR production bumped to +4
Stable/Ducal Stable now +2/+4 ITR production
Niche building given a bit of life
Windmill - now +6 food for ITR
Removed ITR food from Stockyard
Removed ITR production from Factory

--I am generally ambivalent on these changes. Ultimately it does focus ITR bonuses at the times when they are most competitive. So in theory it will make them better. I don't think it will change my building assessment any. For example, I think the workshop is on the weak side after its last change (pops just aren't high enough to give the workshop close to its old bonuses unless you have forests to work) and I don't think this change will make more enticing. Same on the flip side, the factory loses its ITR bonus doesn't concern me one bit about it becoming weaker, its the core bonuses I look at. So ultimately I am fine with these changes...in general my opinion is (nothing really changed).

Units
Removed DFPs from paratroopers/special forces/XCOM units
--Great!
Removed resource requirement for naval melee units
--Awesome!
Carrier now requires Aluminum (was Iron)
--Honestly, now that naval melee is free, I don't mind that carriers need iron. There is some realism is having to swap out battleships to gain carriers. But I don't have a strong opinion on this one, aluminum is probably fine as well.

 

[Gazebo]

My notes inline.

- Diplo units included
- Ally only is a consequence of how the code works - the values were 1/friend and 2/ally, so dropping by 1 meant that friends no longer got a bonus. Them's the breaks.
- took me a minute to understand what 'PAD' meant – re: 'food into gold,' that's a complicated and ultimately expensive calculation. I looked into it, and the reason I didn't do it is that there are some recursive risks with doing it for food because of how unhappiness is calculated. So that's not a viable model given the circumstances, at least not without a fair bit of new code.
- Re: carrier, it makes sense (to me) that carriers would require aluminum as they're a repair/deploy point for airplanes. My .02, though.

G

 

[Stalker0]

- Diplo units included

Very excited about that!

 

[amateurgamer88]

Now that naval units don't count as garrison, should we be doing something about amphibious assaults since land units have to play a greater role in taking cities on another continent? Amphibious assaults has become harder when the naval ranged units cannot attack inland.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I kind of like that Agribusinesses are much more useful now, that's great (I think Fertilizer as a tech is much more meaningful now). And Agribusinesses are actually a good use of strategic resources now. I don't think I'm actually going to be using them much because I still want to max out my use of the Shoshone UI and villages on trade routes. I kind of hope that my villager AI isn't going to keep telling me to chop down my jungle tiles to build farms (keeping any kind of vegetation around in the late-game is an achievement IMO). Still, I think this is an improvement for the Agribusiness, I prefer this to how it was! Maybe we can give specific feedback on how to tweak/perfect it after some playthroughs.

I'm really interesting to see how the changes to naval units affect things, very exiting! I'm my latest game on the previous patch I settled a 1-tile island because it contained 6 iron, and I had no qualms about doing so. Would I do the same now? I will be interesting to see how things go. Carrier requiring aluminium was actually one of the changes I was thinking of proposing. Overall this frees up iron a lot more and means I'm likely to actually have some to spend on cannons and mine fields which is great. It also means that civs without iron can still have an actual navy which I think is great for balance.

Buffs to ITRs and slight nerf to ETRs sounds good! I started in the middle of a smallish island in one game recently and never send trade routes from my capital after a certain point in the game because they would only be ITRs and my immediate coastal cities were already well developed at that point. I made the mistake of building my East India Company in my capital (which usually is a solid location for it) before I realised I should have gone with one my port cities instead. I'm a bit confused about the market loosing the ITR bonus though and being transferred to the lighthouse. I get the gameplay objective, but markets are much more ubiquitous than lighthouses and also cheaper so to me this actually feels like it's harder to use ITRs early-game. Guess I'll see how it goes though. The other building changes look great!

Espionage balance change looks great. Although I do wonder if it will make holding onto CSs more difficult late-game. Again, guess I'll just have to give it a go. I don't tend to be short on spies in the end-game after all, so I'll just have to make sure my counter-espionage game is on point.

Could someone tell me what DFP for recon units means?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Very nice update, thank you!

 

[ridjack]

Could someone tell me what DFP for recon units means?

Defensive fighting position.

@Stalker0 Please don't use UTIs for unique tile improvements. I know it's correct, but you're not doing my ADD addled brain any favors!

 

[pineappledan]

Could someone tell me what DFP for recon units means?

They had the bonus HP and defense bonuses, same as infantry unit line. It is a good change, because infantry remains the meat shield niche, and paratroopers/xcoms didn't need the help.

I'm a bit confused about the market loosing the ITR bonus though and being transferred to the lighthouse. I get the gameplay objective, but markets are much more ubiquitous than lighthouses and also cheaper so to me this actually feels like it's harder to use ITRs early-game. Guess I'll see how it goes though. The other building changes look great!

Personally, I would have liked to see half the bonus stay on market and half the bonus moved to lighthouse. so 2/2. Still disappointed these bonuses aren't available to ITRs, but i'm assuming at this point it is a hard-coded limitation of ITRs.

Rome's UNW interaction is not really an issue unless you're running - say - modmods with a bunch of UNWs.

The most powerful interactions are in base VP. I never added anything in my custom mods which matches a global 45XP from the Assyrian royal library, or Roman legions with the Buffalo or Bushido promotion lines.

If people find issue with what the 4 terrain-dependent plants offer they can run your modmod - for myself, and for testing purposes, I've gone back and forth on the topic, and ultimately I feel that there is enough variety at that point in the game to make meaningful choices.

There's 3 terrain dependent plants, but only 2 augment terrain since Solar is just a copy of the nuclear plant that doesn't require uranium. I had hoped my modmod would function as a proof of concept for a rework of the plants to give more comprehensive tile coverage, and unstack the solar and nuclear plants so they provide distinct options. The current power plants not only create too much variability on standard maps, but also don't play well with different map types like archipelago.

For farms, I'll ask you this - is it not odd to you that farms and pastures go unworked in the modern era? It's not like the modern real world is devoid of enormous farms and pastures today. Farms, if maintained into the modern era, should be rewarded with a sizable yield bump that makes them competitive with other tiles and improvements. If 3/3 is too much we can reduce, but testing didn't show it to be all that out of step with other tile yields of the same era (especially considering the opportunity cost of the Agribusiness).

re: 'food into gold,' that's a complicated and ultimately expensive calculation. I looked into it, and the reason I didn't do it is that there are some recursive risks with doing it for food because of how unhappiness is calculated. So that's not a viable model given the circumstances, at least not without a fair bit of new code.

What about the proposals to have Agribusiness reduce Specialist food consumption in the city, or my proposal to give Agribusinesses a +3 for every farm within 3 tiles of a city (like observatories giving for mountains).

Is there less farmland today? Not really, although more intensive farming has meant that land usage rates have gone down because we can feed more people with less farmland. The number of Farmers, however, has dropped drastically. If you still needed farms, but didn't require as many to work them, then that would be a more accurate representation of urbanization and agricultural mechanization.

And what about the situation I describe where you aren't keeping farms into late game, you're building new ones to replace defunct improvements which also happen to be your civ's unique component? The size of these bonuses make farms competitive with Towns - a GP tile - with the right policy choices. That's too far. Maybe if you dump all your policies I can see an argument for farms being better than villages, but 243 off only 1 building and 1 policy is too easy.

A flood plains farm with 2 adjacent farms:
3 base tile
3 farm on river and adjacent
1 from fertilizer tech
1 from cathedral
21 from Imperialism
2 from Freedom
33 from Agribusiness

Total: 1144
Total with India: 1354

a Town on a floodplain with a railroad and a TR:
3 base tile
42 base town yield
44 from tech
44 from railroad and TR
1 from Tradition
4 from Freedom (New Deal)
44 from knowledge through devotion (reformation)

total: 1241444

Hunnic Eki on a Plain tile with 2 adjacent Ekis:
11 base tile
111 base yields
1 2 adjacent
221 from techs
3 from the best UI boost, and also the most likely ideology for Huns (Autocracy)

Total: 45113

 

[saamohod]

Food Process in city is 15% more efficient at converting hammers to production

Do you mean "converting hammers to food"?

 

[Stalker0]

A flood plains farm with 2 adjacent farms:
3 base tile
3 farm on river and adjacent
1 from fertilizer tech
1 from cathedral
21 from Imperialism
2 from Freedom
33 from Agribusiness

Total: 1144
Total with India: 1354

a Town on a floodplain with a railroad and a TR:
3 base tile
42 base town yield
44 from tech
44 from railroad and TR
1 from Tradition
4 from Freedom (New Deal)

total: 12414

A few notes on here:

1) Cathedrals should not be factored in here, as this is a belief specifically targeting farms. I would remove that for general comparisons (just as we are not including the religious belief that gives +4 science to GPTIs).
2) +2 food from Freedom is for urbanization...one of the worst Freedom policies in the game. Seriously, who takes that? But even if you do factor that in...

3) The only thing that really matters here is the gold difference. The town gives 11 more gold (I subtracted the cathedral). Yes the farm is super impressive, but the Town still gives more of what matters. I am still working the town over the farm...and I've had the benefits of that town a whole lot longer than I've had the farm bonus.


To me this farm is not beating a GPTI...but what it is doing is giving an alternative to a specialist. Working this farm tile compared to a Merchant or Engineer specialist is actually tempting...still wouldn't say automatic, but at least I'd consider it.

 

[Gazebo]

A few notes on here:

1) Cathedrals should not be factored in here, as this is a belief specifically targeting farms. I would remove that for general comparisons (just as we are not including the religious belief that gives +4 science to GPTIs).
2) +2 food from Freedom is for urbanization...one of the worst Freedom policies in the game. Seriously, who takes that? But even if you do factor that in...

3) The only thing that really matters here is the gold difference. The town gives 11 more gold (I subtracted the cathedral). Yes the farm is super impressive, but the Town still gives more of what matters. I am still working the town over the farm...and I've had the benefits of that town a whole lot longer than I've had the farm bonus.


To me this farm is not beating a GPTI...but what it is doing is giving an alternative to a specialist. Working this farm tile compared to a Merchant or Engineer specialist is actually tempting...still wouldn't say automatic, but at least I'd consider it.

None of this, I want only comparisons to custom civs with maximum farm bonuses so we can show just how OP the agribusiness is.

G

 

[Gazebo]

They had the bonus HP and defense bonuses, same as infantry unit line. It is a good change, because infantry remains the meat shield niche, and paratroopers/xcoms didn't need the help.

Personally, I would have liked to see half the bonus stay on market and half the bonus moved to lighthouse. so 2/2. Still disappointed these bonuses aren't available to ITRs, but i'm assuming at this point it is a hard-coded limitation of ITRs.

The most powerful interactions are in base VP. I never added anything in my custom mods which matches a global 45XP from the Assyrian royal library, or Roman legions with the Buffalo or Bushido promotion lines.

There's 3 terrain dependent plants, but only 2 augment terrain since Solar is just a copy of the nuclear plant that doesn't require uranium. I had hoped my modmod would function as a proof of concept for a rework of the plants to give more comprehensive tile coverage, and unstack the solar and nuclear plants so they provide distinct options. The current power plants not only create too much variability on standard maps, but also don't play well with different map types like archipelago.


What about the proposals to have Agribusiness reduce Specialist food consumption in the city, or my proposal to give Agribusinesses a +3 for every farm within 3 tiles of a city (like observatories giving for mountains).

Is there less farmland today? Not really, although more intensive farming has meant that land usage rates have gone down because we can feed more people with less farmland. The number of Farmers, however, has dropped drastically. If you still needed farms, but didn't require as many to work them, then that would be a more accurate representation of urbanization and agricultural mechanization.

And what about the situation I describe where you aren't keeping farms into late game, you're building new ones to replace defunct improvements which also happen to be your civ's unique component? The size of these bonuses make farms competitive with Towns - a GP tile - with the right policy choices. That's too far. Maybe if you dump all your policies I can see an argument for farms being better than villages, but 243 off only 1 building and 1 policy is too easy.

A flood plains farm with 2 adjacent farms:
3 base tile
3 farm on river and adjacent
1 from fertilizer tech
1 from cathedral
21 from Imperialism
2 from Freedom
33 from Agribusiness

Total: 1144
Total with India: 1354

a Town on a floodplain with a railroad and a TR:
3 base tile
42 base town yield
44 from tech
44 from railroad and TR
1 from Tradition
4 from Freedom (New Deal)

total: 12414

Hunnic Eki on a Plain tile with 2 adjacent Ekis:
11 base tile
111 base yields
1 2 adjacent
221 from techs
3 from the best UI boost, and also the most likely ideology for Huns (Autocracy)

Total: 45113

I like what your powerplant modmod does, don't get me wrong – I'm just not ready to commit to that kind of relationship. TBH I'm waiting to see what you do with the new code I just made for you.

G

 

[Omen of Peace]

I agree with the point on Farm yields, and that's after I pointed out twice in recent months that Farms were weak in the late game compared to e.g. Lumbermills or Mines.
I would suggest:
- lowering Lumbermills (& co) yields just a bit (for a total of -1 or -2 H by the late game for instance)
- buffing farms, but by less than the new Agrobusiness version
- buffing UI so that they compete with standard improvements!

 

[BiteInTheMark]

If people find issue with what the 4 terrain-dependent plants offer they can run your modmod - for myself, and for testing purposes, I've gone back and forth on the topic, and ultimately I feel that there is enough variety at that point in the game to make meaningful choices.

Between wind plant and hydro plant is no real choice. If my city lies on a river, I have to build hydro plant, if not, I can build a wind plant.
While its clear that a classical bath building needs a direct river connection, cause the ability to deliver water over great distances was limited, this limitation in modern age isnt the case anymore.
A real hydro plant is never build in a city, so limiting hydro plants to cities direct at a river makes no real sense, cause in modern times the generated electricity can be transported over greater distances.
On the other side, my city may lie only on a very small river, giving me only the bonus to 2 or 3 tiles, while theres a huge open field nearby, which would offer me plenty of additional yields from a wind plant.
To the windplant.... its far far superior to the hydro plant. Its very very unlikely that you have less grassland/plains tiles than river tiles, but both give the same amount of yields.

For farms, I'll ask you this - is it not odd to you that farms and pastures go unworked in the modern era? It's not like the modern real world is devoid of enormous farms and pastures today. Farms, if maintained into the modern era, should be rewarded with a sizable yield bump that makes them competitive with other tiles and improvements. If 3/3 is too much we can reduce, but testing didn't show it to be all that out of step with other tile yields of the same era (especially considering the opportunity cost of the Agribusiness).

You are asking the wrong questions. Better to ask, WHY are farms not worked in the later stages of the game? Definitly not cause they are providing not enough hammer and gold.
I think in majority, the excessive yield inflation from other sources are devaluing normal improvements. Ive done a comparison for science, and in my game, only 30% of my science were coming from my citizens and specialists,over 40% were coming from instant triggers. A single citizen/specialist in my city only contributed 1% to the total science output of the city, so why getting more of them, if the increase is marginal?

Instead of simply pumping even more yields into this system, feeding the yield spiral, you simply could have linked several buildings with city size and remove for example those excessive amount of instant yields triggers.
Does a university really have to give instant yields if a citizen is born? Wouldnt it be better if this building would simply give yields based on the amount of citizens? (tracking the total science gained by university instant yields should enable us to find a science to people ratio, which wouldnt differ that much from now)

If city size would really matter, you would wonder how many farms would be worked.
As an example, the flat science from library could get removed, but instead gives 1 science for every 4 population. The science output should be similar or a bit smaller than you get, if you normally build the library in your city.
Amphitheaters could also give culture per population (make sense, more people visitig the theater creates more culture).
An interesting but not necessary addition could be population based maintenance, more pops give more yields, but also increase the amount of maintenance (cause you need more or bigger libraries in your cities).

If the amount of citizens in your city matter, you would automatically increase the value of food, without strange mechanics.
But this doesnt make growth to an automatic win setting. Valuing food too high and you will have happiness problems and you cant bring your infrastructure up to date. Sacrificing other yields for food may lead to missing wonders or bring you in the situation of beeing conquered by early strong warmongers. Balancing the growth with production and progress will be an interesting, challenging task. Atleast thats my opinion.

 

[pineappledan]

None of this, I want only comparisons to custom civs with maximum farm bonuses so we can show just how OP the agribusiness is.

sounds like I’m being shown the door.

I hadn’t brought up my modmods here, but you have brought it up 3 separate times. You seem to be suggesting that, because I have shared some modmods, my opinions are somehow invalid, or at least hide some agenda. Honestly I’m getting a bit tired of it. Perhaps I should just remove all my mods from the repository so I’m allowed to have an opinion again?

 

[Rekk]

For farms, I'll ask you this - is it not odd to you that farms and pastures go unworked in the modern era? It's not like the modern real world is devoid of enormous farms and pastures today

The population working those enormous plots of land has decreased, though.

Talk of having agribusiness give bonuses based on the number of farms in the surrounding area (worked or unworked) is supposed to show that those farms are still being worked, just not by massive amounts of people.

 

[Blue Ghost]

G, I agree with pineappledan here. Modmods were not part of the discussion, so you bringing them up is irrelevant and amounts to an ad hominem. You’re the boss here, and you’re free to consider his opinion or not, but to try to discredit him by bringing in outside baggage is bad form.