New Version - 2.7.3 (October 7, 2022)

[Rekk]

All we want is a newly settled city to not unfarily weigh down this average, so a condition that checks for only cities that existed for at least X turns, or have at least X population, or at least X production, or even just a rule that the very first engineer uses just your best city are all that's needed to fix.

We are actually using this method for needs. A city needs to have 3 citizens before it starts contributing to the medians (ie cities that have produced a settler are counted), so I'm not opposed to something similar

Anything along these lines would be sufficient (balance-wise they are all close enough, IDK what would be easy/possible). The first engineer should consistently build or be very close to building a Hanging-Gardens level wonder IMO.

On the other hand, why do you need a GE to guarantee a wonder in 1 turn? How much percentage is the GE fulfilling, and why is it not enough to work on the wonder until you can finish it off with a GE? If you lose the wonder before you get to that point, why should it be considered wrong to plant it as a manufactory so that you are more likely to win the next one?

 

[axatin]

Maybe I missed something about the new Unhappiness system, but the total unhappiness in a city is still the sum of the individual factors, isn't it? In the example below,
where do the 18 Unhappiness come from?

 

[looorg]

Maybe I missed something about the new Unhappiness system, but the total unhappiness in a city is still the sum of the individual factors, isn't it? In the example below,
where do the 18 Unhappiness come from?

It's somewhat hard to say from a screenshot like that but part of it could just be that you are working to many specialists. According to the text there should just be 5 and 2 from the war, the others are cancelled out. You are clearly doing fine one science and culture. Then possibly a few more from the specialists that are locked in. But that still shouldn't amount to 18. Unless they come from other sources, there could be some events but not that many. I guess part of it could be a national issue as you are making more unhappy then happy faces (41%, 64 happy, 78 unhappy). So look over all the cities and see if you are working to many specialists to start with. If that doesn't help there is something else going on.

 

[CppMaster]

Please explain why it's gamey, more so than what you can do with Great Scientists

It's not more gamey than GS, it's very similar.

 

[axatin]

It's somewhat hard to say from a screenshot like that but part of it could just be that you are working to many specialists. According to the text there should just be 5 and 2 from the war, the others are cancelled out. You are clearly doing fine one science and culture. Then possibly a few more from the specialists that are locked in. But that still shouldn't amount to 18. Unless they come from other sources, there could be some events but not that many. I guess part of it could be a national issue as you are making more unhappy then happy faces (41%, 64 happy, 78 unhappy). So look over all the cities and see if you are working to many specialists to start with. If that doesn't help there is something else going on.

Thank you for your reply! My question was actually a bit more general: I always thought that the unhappiness in a city is just the sum of the unhappiness from the different sources. If I have 5 from Distress and 2 from War (and 0 from Specialists, as Urbanization would also be shown in the tooltip), the total Unhappiness should be 7, and not 18? Is this a bug, or do I misunderstand something?

Edit: Like it is with Happiness. I have 17 local happiness in the city and in the tooltip it shows me where they are coming from

 

[Rekk]

It's not more gamey than GS, it's very similar.

Focusing production/science in a cities for 10 turns is a choice, and it might not even necessarily be the correct one.

Also, 10 turns is a number. It could be averaged out over 20 turns, or 50.

 

[CrazyG]

On the other hand, why do you need a GE to guarantee a wonder in 1 turn? How much percentage is the GE fulfilling, and why is it not enough to work on the wonder until you can finish it off with a GE? If you lose the wonder before you get to that point, why should it be considered wrong to plant it as a manufactory so that you are more likely to win the next one?

My tradition capital will typically have enough production to build the Hanging Gardens (just an example) in about 7-9 turns, so if the goal of the engineer is to represent 10 turns of production, it should get it or be close (I'm not advocating its 100% guaranteed). Later wonders will require more and that's okay.

I just think this is a decent target for what the yields should like to make great engineers about as strong as before in the early game (which I think is a good goal).

 

[CppMaster]

To be clear, the way it currently scales works much better in later eras. You are suggesting a return to the previous method, where GE scaling is a serious problem.

It doesn't need to scale linearly with era. Every era could have a separate constant value in a table or sth, so it can be easily adjusted.

 

[Rekk]

It doesn't need to scale linearly with era. Every era could have a separate constant value in a table or sth, so it can be easily adjusted.

This is not "easily adjusted", it is a nightmare to adjust. Every time you adjust a science/culture/etc cost curve, you have to go through an additional iterative process to find the right set of values for this scaling. This won't happen; see the lack of interest in using the previous tools to figure out what the correct numbers are in, like, any function that scales in the game. Reference: the previous happiness calculation. There were modifiers that stated how many yields were were worth one unhappiness. Players could have set their own defines to iterate through in order to find the perfect balance of too easy or too hard. No one did. Poverty was a problem for a long time because its yield variable wasn't correctly tuned to the amount of gold that appeared in the game. It was adjusted by Recursive a couple patches ago and unhappiness problems became a non-factor, requiring another retuning to *all* of the modifiers.

Great Engineer Hurry Production scaling has been off for years, and no one has tried playing with its 3 variables "make the perfect curve"; if they had tried, they wouldn't be able to find something satisfactory across all eras because its curve isnt even close to lining up with production costs. I reduced it to 2, with the baseline curve following the player's relationship to costs exactly. You have just suggested increasing the number of variables by 8.

Scaling with player yields means that these functions automatically scale with how the player functions related to costs at any given point in time.

Both the happiness and great person yield changes were done with the intent of reducing fiddliness, and instead tie baseline scaling to the player's relationship between yields and costs over the course of the game. This allows balance to not worry about the baseline. We've eliminated the arbitrary curve coefficients, reducing the number of variables necessary to tune.

 

[STEPHEN HOFFMANN]

Maybe this is the culprit @STEPHEN HOFFMANN?

Not it, I don't play with that mod. I suspect now there is no issue. As I read through other posts about being in happiness trouble early, seems like that is part of the new version. Reading through the release notes, I understood that happiness would be less of a burden in the early game. I haven't had time to test more, but if I see anything I'll reach out to you. Thanks for all your work on these modmods!

 

[pineappledan]

Just want to chip in that you can’t make GE bursts scale off anything other than city production itself or building costs. Buildings and production scale much higher, and have spikes/plateaus throughout the game, so any attempt to make a consistent scaler, like era, will simply fail.

Color me skeptical about the “problem” of GE’s bulb being sunk by small cities in the early game. At worst, this just means you will want to put down manufactories for your first 1-2 GEs, and increase your production base/bulb percentage for next time.
… that’s exactly how it works for every other GP type. If you want to scrape a few turns off an early wonder because you just HAVE to have it, then that’s your choice. Why are you demanding GEs change, but you aren’t also demanding GScientists change, since they can be used to rush wonders in pretty much the same way?

 

[CppMaster]

Why are you demanding GEs change, but you aren’t also demanding GScientists change, since they can be used to rush wonders in pretty much the same way?

GS and GW are based on empire output, not mean city output, no?

 

[CrazyG]

Another option for great engineers could just be X turns of the city they are from (rather than the average of many cities). That avoids any weirdness of settler timing.

that’s exactly how it works for every other GP type. If you want to scrape a few turns off an early wonder because you just HAVE to have it, then that’s your choice. Why are you demanding GEs change, but you aren’t also demanding GScientists change, since they can be used to rush wonders in pretty much the same way?

They don't work exactly the same way. If scientists gave mean of top 5 cities, I absolutely would propose a change.

Just want to chip in that you can’t make GE bursts scale off anything other than city production itself or building costs

I think they scaled off city population for years.

 

[Rekk]

Also, this would mean civs that are way in the lead already would get the most benefit from expending great people. In my opinion, great people should be a way for civs that are behind to dig themselves out of a hole. If a civ is barely making any money then a great merchant will have no benefit? But if you're making tons of money then the merchant will give you lots more? That sounds backward

If you want this as a catch-up mechanic, then it can't be tied to how the player is performing and you remove control over the player's ability to influence the results.

Incorporating this with proper era scaling means you take some form of average of the entire player base's yields. This reduces the strength of bulbs for the players that are ahead, and increases the strength of bulbs for players that are behind. The Great Musician's current Musical Tour can't fit in this paradigm.

 

[Rekk]

Another option for great engineers could just be X turns of the city they are from (rather than the average of many cities). That avoids any weirdness of settler timing.

Then you will be disincentivized from working Engineers anywhere but your capital, or pay close attention to your other GE completion gauges to make sure they never finish.
It may be that the opportunity cost is too high, but that was the mentality I went with averaging out the production.

I think they scaled off city population for years.

You're right, they did. How did that work with regards to GEs in later eras?

The modifiers still exist, but I zeroed them out. The flat production and linear era scaler are there too.

 

[CrazyG]

You're right, they did. How did that work with regards to GEs in later eras?

The modifiers still exist, but I zeroed them out. The flat production and linear era scaler are there too.

It worked out terribly haha. I'm not proposing going back at all, this change is great and the extra transparency on great people is really appreciated.

Average of 4 cities with pop > 3 should work fine. BTW does it include puppets?

 

[Stalker0]

Maybe I missed something about the new Unhappiness system, but the total unhappiness in a city is still the sum of the individual factors, isn't it? In the example below,
where do the 18 Unhappiness come from?

something does seem off there. In my view I always see the unhappiness from things like specialists (urbanization), and yes every unhappiness is normally accounted for. This looks like a possible bug

 

[pineappledan]

If you want this as a catch-up mechanic, then it can't be tied to how the player is performing and you remove control over the player's ability to influence the results.

Incorporating this with proper era scaling means you take some form of average of the entire player base's yields. This reduces the strength of bulbs for the players that are ahead, and increases the strength of bulbs for players that are behind. The Great Musician's current Musical Tour can't fit in this paradigm.

Using all players’ yields to calculate GP bulbs (for everyone other than GMusician) actually sounds pretty rad? Spies don’t rubber band as hard as they used to, and this means you would have a lot of buffer against player-wide spikes. This would resolve the world fair/GWriter bulb exploit, for instance.

You could still have the % modifiers for bulbs from GP tiles be specific to the player, so players can still invest in larger bulbs that way, but the base amount would first be calculated using global output.

 

[Legen]

Wonder costs scale based on tech column; any two wonders in the same tech column will have the same base cost. Basing GE's bulb ability to be on the latest tech column researched would mean it can scale at the same rate that wonders do, regardless of how irregularly the costs change.

Also, this would mean civs that are way in the lead already would get the most benefit from expending great people. In my opinion, great people should be a way for civs that are behind to dig themselves out of a hole. If a civ is barely making any money then a great merchant will have no benefit? But if you're making tons of money then the merchant will give you lots more? That sounds backward

I don't think that great people should be a catch-up mechanic, though. Great people are currently designed as a long term investment; focusing on one type of great people means getting large returns from that type in the lategame. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense for a civ that never bothered with engineers to get more out of a single great engineer than a civ that heavily focused on engineers as soon as their first specialist slot was available. If a civ has a history of generating lots of great engineers, it makes sense that the next one would be able to do a lot more than a great engineer from a civ of which he is the only one they ever had.

Case in point is Babylon's design. The civ's main point is to dominate in science by working scientists before anyone else can, working more of them and getting more great scientists than everyone else. That design would not make sense under a philosophy that great scientists are a catch-up mechanic.

 

[pineappledan]

It would work just fine if the % bulb scaler from GPTIs was specific to the player. Just the base amount could be calculated by global yields