New Game Speeds

[Toffer90]

I'm not spending any money (as in hurry production), I just build wealth to keep from going bankrupt. Does that count too?

Nope, sorry, I misread your previous post.
I think upgrading units count.

 

[Noriad2]

Oh and I discovered that my financial situation improves somewhat if I whip away excess pop that can't be placed on the city map (and become specialists). It lowers civic upkeep. R.I.P. Specialists-economy. This may give me the financials to take another city, perhaps even one more once my educators are done upping the education.

There's a bug with whipping in that it doesn't remove pop from the city screen (Shift-CTRL-T recalc solves it). I have filed a bug report. Given the pathetic amount of hammers it gives, I doubt anyone used whipping recently.

 

[JosEPh_II]

A few days ago I updated to the latest SVN and started a Deity/nightmare game. Large map/snail speed/tech diffusion on. Size Matters off because there are too many exploits in that. Played Smoke Jaguar: agressive/industrious/hunter-gatherer.

I also decided on one "house rule": no selling units to the AI (not even if the AI asks for it) since the AI overvalues units to a ridiculous degree, making it easy to rush through the tech tree just by building and selling workers.

Initial game went well. Scouted a bit, settled close to another AI, decent location with river/hills/caves. Built several early wonders, then conquered the neighbouring city after I got to barter. By the time I got to Mining and Caste System I had 4 cities, and a slightly positive cash flow with 100% tech and no cities on Build Wealth.
I then conquered a fifth city, and after deleting my excess units and maintain enough police units to keep crime in the mild positives, I was able to break even with 100% tech and 2 of 5 cities on build wealth. So far things were looking good.

However, after that my game stagnated and my financial situation deteriorated. By the time I reached writing/bronze working/monarchy I had to put 3 or 4 cities out of 5 on build wealth to break even. However, unlike a few months ago, despotism/monarchy would worsen my financial situation instead of bettering it. So I was forced to stay on tribalism. And as the AI got stronger I had to maintain a bigger military, which is expensive as each unit costs 6 in upkeep.

So I slugged on, trading resources for techs, researching stuff myself also. But every time my money increased, inflation and increased unit costs would eat up the extra cash. I reached mid-classical, and after building courthouses (-25% upkeep) everywhere I STILL had only 5 cities, of which three were on build wealth.
These are good, large cities in good locations, but my game is stagnating heavily as I am financially unable to expand. Meanwhile the Greeks are at 30 cities, have one (small) vassal, and have researched gunpowder (early renaissance). Oh and one of my enemies just bribed these Greeks into declaring war on me. Luckily they are on the other side of the planet.

Looking at my financial report, l see:
Unit cost 81
Unit supply 0
City maintenance 507
Civic upkeep 444
Inflation 474
total expenses 1506

And crime is between -146 and +50.

In other words, I'm stuck on 5 cities already for an age and a half, and probably for the forseeable future.

So far I have neglected education, as initial penalties are mild and not worth the 6/unit for ineffective educators. Now that I have access to better educators with better promotions, I started to build some, and may get 2 or 3 cities on positive education levels in many turns, as it takes a lot of time to come back from low education. That would give me some more hammers and commerce, but I doubt it will make me financially solvent without cities building wealth.

A few months ago I tried out deity/nightmare and considered it hard but winneable. I was at lower tech level and had 17 cities, half of which were building wealth. Now I wonder if it is still winnable, as I seem to be financially unable to expand beyond 5 cities. I fear that if I take/build another city all my production would be used up for upkeep cost. I'll continue this game for a while to see how it develops.

In need of some info from you Noriad2.

What is/was your Civic set at time of stagnation?

Of your City maint. how much was due to Game speed penalty?

Inflation is at 46%.

Snails inflation rate is set at 12% to start compared to Normal's 18%. The vanilla BtS is set to 27%.

The Handicaps have not been "balanced" yet. That is still a project in the works. The whole HandicapInfos xml has been in need of a good going over for some time. Too much "tweaking" by too many modders over the years not having a good grasp of the whole picture imhpo.

Please, as you progress in this game, (adv by eras) post your info like your 1st post. This will help to further evaluate the whole picture. This is valuable data for what I'm trying to achieve.

EDIT: When you posted this:

However, after that my game stagnated and my financial situation deteriorated. By the time I reached writing/bronze working/monarchy I had to put 3 or 4 cities out of 5 on build wealth to break even.

What was your Research rate at that time? And what is your research rate now?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Oh and I discovered that my financial situation improves somewhat if I whip away excess pop that can't be placed on the city map (and become specialists). It lowers civic upkeep. R.I.P. Specialists-economy. This may give me the financials to take another city, perhaps even one more once my educators are done upping the education.

How many of your Specialists were merchants, or Artists, or Priests vs Engineers. The game Loves engineers but the 3 I mention cover a broader area than just Engineer's paltry bonus. Is Noble available to you as well?

Would you be so kind as to post a save game?

 

[mosesj]

Alright, I forgot to quickly check but I managed to get to medieval era at around 1086 BC

 

[Noriad2]

In need of some info from you Noriad2.

What is/was your Civic set at time of stagnation?

Of your City maint. how much was due to Game speed penalty?


Please, as you progress in this game, (adv by eras) post your info like your 1st post. This will help to further evaluate the whole picture. This is valuable data for what I'm trying to achieve.

EDIT: When you posted this:

What was your Research rate at that time? And what is your research rate now?

How many of your Specialists were merchants, or Artists, or Priests vs Engineers. The game Loves engineers but the 3 I mention cover a broader area than just Engineer's paltry bonus. Is Noble available to you as well?

Would you be so kind as to post a save game?

These are many questions..If you want detailed answers I think it is better that I zip up the save files and see if I can put them up on the web somewhere for you to download. Meanwhile in the game I mentioned, 2 more neighbours declared war on me and after I lost my army I kinda gave up on the game.

So I tried again: deity/nightmare/large map/snail. No Size Matters, tech diffusion on, and house rule: no selling of units to the AI.

As money problems was what defeated me last time, this time I chose Roosevelt and his Organized trait for a financial advantage. I watched my finances like a hawk, made sure my cities were close to my palace, and went all Genghis Khan (*) on my neighbours. Systematically conquering neighbouring cities just to sell off their buildings and raze the city afterwards. And to prevent cultural border pressure in the future.

Thanks to better finances, I was able to build more Research and tech faster. I managed to grab Shintoism (with its -10% city upkeep temples) 3 turns before an AI did, and another AI just built El Dorado close to my borders. If I manage to grab that, I have confidence I can outpace the inflation level and have a decent shot at winning this game.


(*) Genghis Khan: Mongol ruler whose armies killed an estimated 11% of the world's population in the 12th/13th century. He was however in favour of religious freedom and women's rights.

 

[Noriad2]

Oh and regarding my house rule of no selling units to the AI, the AI ridiculously overvalues workers and other units in trade. See attached screenshot where an AI contacted me to offer to buy a worker (production cost 675 hammers and/or food) for 11,137 money. If you mass-produce workers you can buy techs much faster than you can research yourself, as long as there is somebody willing to trade. This completely ruins the difficulty level.

I declined this offer, of course.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Oh and regarding my house rule of no selling units to the AI, the AI ridiculously overvalues workers and other units in trade. See attached screenshot where an AI contacted me to offer to buy a worker (production cost 675 hammers and/or food) for 11,137 money. If you mass-produce workers you can buy techs much faster than you can research yourself, as long as there is somebody willing to trade. This completely ruins the difficulty level.

I have No Clue how the AI evaluates these Diplomacy trades. You did not show in this screen shot how much Gold/turn and treasury you and Dom Pedro have?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Further adjustments to Game Speeds committed today. Gold will be tougher to hoard early game in most all GS now. Eternity was given a 10% Maint. reprieve but all the rest except Snail saw an increase.

But Initial City maint was reduced.

As more games are played and save games from you all examined and used, the tweaks will continue. The "too much gold" mantra that has plagued C2C will come to an end. You will work for your gold and treasury a bit harder now.

 

[Noriad2]

@JosEPh_II as promised above, I have compressed the save files of my deity/nightmare game with 7-zip and put it on the web (link will be valid for a week)

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/32a57bbe4be1ef6cb56004eabc4a1dce20170712131851/71ddbf

This game was a miserable failure. I did not develop fast enough to stay ahead of the inflation, among other things, leading to stagnation with 5 cities, while the AI became stronger and stronger, until the game became hopeless.

The difference between a low difficulty and a high difficulty game is that on a low difficulty level you can play suboptimally and get away with it. However on a high difficulty, suboptimal play will make you crash and burn, and that forces you to rethink your standard strategies and adapt. That is why I like to play on the hardest difficulty. I have started another deity/nightmare game and this time I'm doing much better. Once I reach the same date as the game above I will post the saves too, for comparison.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Noriad2 ,
Thank you for the save games.

I just updated Game Speeds again last night, SVN 9659.

What is the largest map you will play on?

 

[Noriad2]

@Noriad2 ,.

What is the largest map you will play on?

I don't want to go beyond Large sized maps. If I ever reach later stages, I fear the game would be too tedious and slow on larger maps.

 

[JosEPh_II]

If I ever reach later stages, I fear the game would be too tedious and slow on larger maps.

That is the price you pay right now. And why we have basically stopped supporting Gigantic maps with 40 AI. Even Giant maps we don't recommend with anymore than 18 AI now.

I used to play Huge with 12 AI, but since I do so much testing I've reduced it to Large with 8 AI for all GS tests.

 

[Noriad2]

Allright, I tried again. Deity/nightmare/perfectworld2f/large map/snail. SVN 9658. No Size Matters, no Surround and Destroy. I Chose Roosevelt of the United States for his Organized trait. Played until BC-1518. I've 7-zipped the save games and uploaded the zip here (link stays available for a week) :

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/02b26118801bc76ae1aa49bd8f98388920170716202409/8b409a

House rules:
-no trading of any unit to the AI because the AI overvalues units (especially workers) in trade.
-halfway I discovered that the AI is much more willing to sell techs right after loading a save game, so I made the rule of no buying techs from the AI in the first turn after loading a save game.

This time went a lot better than last time. I have 18 cities instead of 5 and am half an age ahead compared to last time. I get a money surplus at 90% tech rate with no cities building Wealth. Despite being behind in tech I managed to pick up several religions, spread them and build their monasteries (for the research bonuses) and wonders. I'm about to grab the Christianity/Islam/Voodoo cluster too. Inflation is at 48%, similar to my earlier game at this date, which means that building Wealth has no effect on inflation.

Top dog is India, with its late-medieval tech compared to my early-medieval, and its 3x stronger army. I would have considered this game winnable if he didn't have 5 other civs vassalized. I cursed a few turns ago, when Ottomans, my intended next target, peacefully vassalized itself to India, leaving me without direct neighbours to gobble up without a massive world war.The vassals are combined 4x stronger than me, so India is effectively 7x stronger than me. India is also at war with the weak Assyrians, and if they surrender too, it would leave me and the Dutch against Indian hegemony. I suspect that India has been feeding its vassals lots of techs, because they all teched up rapidly and all have stronger units than me. India built the Apostolic Palace and Tengriism is its faith. Which I adopted too to suck up to him diplomatically.

Mid-Classical I used slavery to whip down my population (is bugged, pop is removed from the city but not city map, is fixed with shift-ctrl-T Recalc Everything), then used stop population growth in most cities. Then I went all education to get it from deep negative to positive. Due to the lower pop, I was able to get education positive without building Bard units, and crime negative with very few police units.

What I'm going to do next is grab Christianity/Islam/Voodoo, spread them, build their wonders and monasteries, and tech up to the next military unit upgrade.

After that my strategy is still open. I may try to go all-out Build Research using my many research bonuses in an attempt to out-tech India. I am on friendly terms with India's vassals, if I beeline the right techs I could trade with all of them. Or I could do an all-city military buildup, and start a world war after the next war between India and the Dutch breaks out. Fortify and defend in the east while striking against his vassals in the west.

As you can see, this game went a lot better than my last one. Not sure if this is caused by the Organized trait, which helped me to stay ahead of the inflation (*), the different map, or improved gameplay.


(*) staying ahead of the inflation: if you tech up too slow, you will have less money buildings available, which means your economy grows slower while the cost of inflation keep growing. Due to the growing cost, you need to put more cities on Build Wealth instead of Build Research. Which means you tech up even slower. This is a self-reinforcing problem. So you either stay ahead of the inflation or get slowly swallowed by it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sounds like our days of people complaining that we don't have a game here are beginning to vanish. Obviously there's still lots to do to improve on things and we'll have to stay on top of balance factors as we introduce new project changes. But progress is gradual enough it shouldn't be outpacing the finer balance points Joe continues to improve on. We've got a good team gelling here going now I think for the most part. And I AM doing things here, just much slower - mired in a long project when I've lost 80-90% of my previous modding time. Progress is slow.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Noriad2,

Thanks for the savegames and the detailed description! Valuable data here.

Snails inflation is 12% and it is offset by 390 turns. Which means No inflation in the game until the 391st turn, which should be close to the time of Tribalism. This offset can be changed. I've set all GS offsets to coincide closely with the research rate of getting to tribalism.

But the thing about Inflation for Nightmare Deity is that it is 90% stronger than regular Deity. This can be toned down a bit, But...I don't want Nightmare Deity (NMD) to be winnable but by only the best Deity players. So if it makes you struggle and prolongs your games then we are finally making serious game play progress.

Which also means that perhaps Deity should have it's Inflation percent increased.

I would be very interested in the data if you would play an Epic NMD game. Or even a Normal NMD game, which would be very fast paced for you. Decision making would have to be done much more quickly.

Of course on the other hand an Eternity NMD would yield valuable data as well. But would take forever to play.

Again Thank You for this information, you are becoming a Valued source for me.

One last bit of info that would be good to see is your Game Set Up and Bug Options. Victory screen screenshot would be very nice.

EDIT: I see you have either Tech Diffusion or WFL On. Did you say which one? Or both?

 

[lightning551]

I'm still in the ancient era.
I missed any notification of anyone reaching the classical era but in 3280BC someone researched Asatru so at least one of them are there.
I'm getting close to classical and Mali is researching it. Mali has turned out to be an island nation with 2 cities. I've now expanded to 5 cities and no other land can be reached without crossing oceans.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I'm still in the ancient era.
I missed any notification of anyone reaching the classical era but in 3280BC someone researched Asatru so at least one of them are there.
I'm getting close to classical and Mali is researching it. Mali has turned out to be an island nation with 2 cities. I've now expanded to 5 cities and no other land can be reached without crossing oceans.

Ocean travel will be a Big deal for you! Get Seafaring as quick as you can but keep a balance going in overall research.

 

[SirJohnEh]

I ran a pair of tests to look at game speed differences due to custom game set-up options that speed up or slow down technology progress. Both test games used code base SVN 9646 at Epic speed and Monarch difficulty on a "C2C_World" Small Archipelago map with High sea levels. I recorded the turn number and game date when I reached the first 4 technology gateways (Sedentary, Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Lifestyles), and created save files (see attached).

Custom Game options for the "Slow Setup"

1. No leader traits - Start Without Positive Traits on, No Negative traits on, Developing Leaders off. I arbitrarily chose Victoria as leader, and assume no significant game speed impact due to leader cultures, heroes, units or wonders.
2. Win For Losing off
3. No Tech Diffusion on
4. No Tech Brokering and No Tech Trading both on
5. Upscaled Building and Unit Costs should have been on for this test, but I forgot to do this. I have never used this option, but I think it would noticeably slow down game speed (unless the increased build times are offset by the different set of Civ4GameSpeedInfo.xml records tagged as "<ReplacementCondition> <Has> <GOMType>GOM_OPTION</GOMType> <ID>GAMEOPTION_UPSCALED_BUILDING_AND_UNIT_COSTS</ID> </Has>")
6. Beeline Sting should have been turned on for this test, but I forgot to do this. From previous testing, I do not think this made a significant difference in the test results.

Custom Game options for the "Fast Setup"

1. super-science leader traits (meaning Developing Leaders and Start Without Positive traits both off, No Negative Traits and Pure Traits both on, plus I chose Nebuchadrezzar to get Scientific and Industrial since Science gives beakers and Industrial builds science buildings and wonders faster)
2. Win For Losing on
3. No Tech Diffusion off
4. No Tech Brokering and No Technology Trading both off
5. Upscaled Building and Unit Costs off
6. Beeline Sting off

Summary of game speed test results for player to reach:

1. Sedentary Lifestyle: Slow setup: turn 221 in 6880 BC Fast setup: turn 188 in 14140 BC ( 33 turns or 15% faster)
2. Classical Lifestyle: Slow setup: turn 402 in 2640 BC Fast setup: turn 330 in 3900 BC ( 72 turns or 18% faster)
3. Medieval Lifestyle: Slow setup: turn 495 in 600 BC Fast setup: turn 396 in 2580 BC ( 99 turns or 20% faster)
4. Renaissance Lifestyle: Slow setup: turn 719 in 179 AD Fast setup: turn 460 in 1300 BC (259 turns or 36% faster)

My Observations and Other Notes

1. The "Slow Setup" drove era achievement dates that I think are at the late end of the expected range for the first 2 eras, although (IMHO) about 1200 years early for the last 2 eras. The latest SVN gamespeed updates may have already resolved this, or it may be specific to this test, or properly running with Upscaled Building and Unit Costs and Bee Sting may resolve this.
2. The "Fast Setup" drove era achievement dates that I think are at the early end of the expected range for the first 2 eras, although (IMHO) about 2500 to 3000 years early for the last 2 eras. I think this is mostly due to the Win For Losing impact from city counts when the player builds vertically and at least 1 AI spreads out horizontally (more details below).
3. I ran a "vertical" empire with 8 to 10 large cities by the Renaissance era (my usual playing style). One AI (Gandhi) in the "Fast Setup" test went "horizontal" with 22 cities by the end of the game, but a slightly lower population than me. This gave me a huge ongoing science rate bonus of about 33% from Win For Losing, although I led in technology the whole game (so got negligible science benefit from Technical Diffusion). Gandhi also wasted turns researching almost all religions - maybe a side-effect of Philosophical emphasizing culture.
   
4. The game speed XML definitions appear to support different turn count and duration values when Upscaled Building Costs is on. Theoretically more replacement-values could be added for other speed-altering game set-up options, but I think the number of permutations would be be impossible to set-up and manage.
   
5. My choice of an Archipeligo map with High sea levels and 1 less AI than the default (to improve turn speed) really slowed down meeting the AIs for technology trading (in the Fast Setup only), for resource trading (losing a minor boost to my science from new resource-dependent buildings), and for warfare (gaining a possibly significant boost to my science by being able to put less emphasis on early military buildings, units and technologies).
6. Other than the custom game setup options described above for "Fast Setup" and "Slow Setup", I tested with only the following setup options set to "on": (1) No Vassal States, (2) No Revolutions, (3) No Barbarian Civs, (4) Usable Mountains, (5) Unlimited Wonders, (6) Barbarian Generals, (7) No Zones Of Control, (8) Realistic Culture Spread, (9) Larger Cities without Metro Admin, (10) Religion Decay, (11) Infinite XP, (12) C2C Combat Mod Fight or Flight, (13) C2C Combat Mod Size Matters, (14) Teleport Hunting Awards, (15) C2C Combat Mod Hide and Seek, (16) Animals Stay out, (17) City starts with 1 tile, (18) Realistic Siege, and (19) C2C Combat Mod Without Warning.

Next Steps: I would appreciate your expert feedback on the worth of re-running this test at the latest SVN level (to use the gamespeed updates in SVN 9658 plus 9659), possibly on a Standard-size non-archipelago map with Upscaled Building Costs and Bee Sting turned on for the "slow setup"). Plus of course any other suggestions.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@SirJohnEh,

Thank you very much.

Yes using the latest SVN should give you some different results now. How much of a difference will depend upon the Options as always. Hopefully the fast game won't be reaching Sed Life at 14000BC! And I'm seeing that the research rate for Epic still needs more adjustments. Need to nail down the common cause for the jump between Classical and Medieval. Of course using Monarch Difficulty does have less challenges, but gives a decent indicator of AI vs player behavior.