New Version - December 5th (12/5)

[infidel88]

Is this intended behavior?

Yes, it's intended. I was raising it before and ppl like it.

Forcing all workers to be automated would be a buff to the AI, but taking player choice out of the equation isn't a good way to balance the game imo.
As it is forcing automated tile selection is no different from forcing automated workers, except that one is vanilla and therefore seems more reasonable.

Workers are not even close to being the same. If AI doesnt follow the same (or at least similar) logic to player, player will easily go into buying tiles on AI side, creating tentacles of landgrabbing towards AI cities or city states and causing general bordergore.

IMO, while I appreciate all work done with the AI (and I can't stand how much I appreciate it), giving player ability to choose tiles, while AI will be stuck with selecting useless grasslands, coasts or deserts is going to create another advantage for human, which will have to be replaced with worst possible mechanism - adding bonuses to AI.

If it's optional though - go ahead, I am 100% for it.

 

[ElliotS]

Workers are not even close to being the same. If AI doesnt follow the same (or at least similar) logic to player, player will easily go into buying tiles on AI side, creating tentacles of landgrabbing towards AI cities or city states and causing general bordergore.

Can you explain why having agency on controlling your workers is significantly different than having agency on controlling your expansion? I feel like most of the differences aren't good reasons to take agency away from the player for border expansion.

I mean you still couldn't grab tiles more than 3 spaces away like this. (5 if changed that way, which I'd be in favor of. Not sure why I can't decide to take Iron I can't work over a forest I could work.) Besides building next to the AI already causes conflict, so it's hardly like being able to clutter their borders faster does much beyond starting a war at breakneck speed.

IMO, while I appreciate all work done with the AI (and I can't stand how much I appreciate it), giving player ability to choose tiles, while AI will be stuck with selecting useless grasslands, coasts or deserts is going to create another advantage for human, which will have to be replaced with worst possible mechanism - adding bonuses to AI.

I also keep mentioning, the AI would still need work, both for when you automate later (if that's an option), when you don't enable the feature and so the AI doesn't fall as far behind.

If it's optional though - go ahead, I am 100% for it.

Yeah, as I've said all along this needs to be optional.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Is this intended behavior?

...

Um, yeah. Must have been some serious "tonight we dine in hell" action I was not able to observe on the barbs turn.

I like the mechanic very much but a few niggles make the likely most logical course of action just accepting the CS will fall and you dig it out yourself.

1. The mere presence of a barb unit (even one near death) seemed to be enough to overrun all forces. - The CS defenses, their troops, and Rome all seemingly were bested by this one little Chuck Norris-esq unit.
2. Space is at an utter premium in and around CS. Almost every tile of a CS is occupied by troops, especially if you start gifting and any other civ is anywhere nearby (likely) I won't say this was a no-win scenario for the barbs but mere attrition would have been a stunning "win" and one recounted in song and literature for ages.
3. You are, thus, mostly boxed out even if you keep troops in the area. Had this in Bucharest. Couldn't move around in the CS, a majority of steps out to surrounding tiles were "Do you Declare War on X civ?" Way too early for open borders with anybody and kind of a big ask just to clear a CS (likely one their neighbors are keen on as well.)

I dig it as it adds a sense of urgency and import to actually living up to your "ally" status more than in name only. But, as it settles out, its mostly futile even in situations where troops were ready, reinforcements were cranked out @ max intervals, and I made it priority #1. More usual circumstances would make it an even less worthwhile endeavor. Accept you can't "save" your already invested influence, let CS fall, get back some cred for "liberation" and the XP from fighting to boot.

Weirdly, a popup "CS has fallen" is probably preferable frustration wise to going through the motions for turns prior since its mostly for naught.

This gets raised occasionally and surprisingly you've almost stumbled onto the explanation yourself with your "tonight we dine in hell" comment.
The mechanics of this quest need to be based on real in-game mechanics so the actual trigger for failure is having at least one barbarian surviving. However you should view the entire quest as more than just a whack-a-mole game and view it in a greater concept.
Perhaps the barbarians sneaked into the governor's house and slaughtered him and his family, sending the city into chaos.
Perhaps they poisoned the water source and the populace went mad or died suddenly.
Perhaps the intent was to just cause an uprising with the city's populace and the barbarians were just the catalyst.
etc.

Yes, the actual mechanic can be frustrating, but the constraints of the game force it to use the existence of a surviving barb as the trigger, the actual quest is in your head and can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.

 

[tu_79]

there is a test build linked at https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/2876

please tell me if that solves the issues you observe

It sems it's working better, I haven't notice this weird behaviour yet.

BTW, the weighting thing for that "distance" calculation doesn't seem to take account of what the tile is going to give to the city, improved or not, or if there is something good in the third ring. Having an herbalist should increase the weighting for a forest tile, having the tech to improve forests with sawmills should increase its value even more, having a simple tile in the second ring adjacent to two 'resource' tiles in the third ring should be prioritized. Roads shouldn't be prioritized until villages can be built. At least that's how I'd do it if I was skilled enough. But it could be that the game doesn't give enough tools for such detail (we non-programmers like to talk big, you know?).

EDIT: Another approach. Every tile suitable for expansion (adjacent to current city tiles) can get values seeing: Basic yields (0 for snow, 1 for tundra, 3 for marsh/lakes, 2 for the rest), improvement technology available (+1), extra resource (+1), Natural Wonder (+3), luxury/strategy (+2), roads (+1 after villages can be built AND if there isn't any resource), city buildings (herbalist gives +1 to jungle/forest, lighthouse gives +1 to sea), pantheon bonuses (+1 if related), city demand (+1 if the yield gives something that is scarce and causing unhappiness in the city), foreseeing (+1 for every unclaimed resource in the next ring).

 

[Civ Spies&Lies]

This gets raised occasionally and surprisingly you've almost stumbled onto the explanation yourself with your "tonight we dine in hell" comment.
The mechanics of this quest need to be based on real in-game mechanics so the actual trigger for failure is having at least one barbarian surviving. However you should view the entire quest as more than just a whack-a-mole game and view it in a greater concept.
Perhaps the barbarians sneaked into the governor's house and slaughtered him and his family, sending the city into chaos.
Perhaps they poisoned the water source and the populace went mad or died suddenly.
Perhaps the intent was to just cause an uprising with the city's populace and the barbarians were just the catalyst.
etc.

Yes, the actual mechanic can be frustrating, but the constraints of the game force it to use the existence of a surviving barb as the trigger, the actual quest is in your head and can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.

All of these are unique narratives and have some basis in logic. However, everything can be extrapolated to a "chose your own adventure/narrative" can it not? Why Netherlands got beef with some random city state on the other side of the world, why Germany so intent on having dyes, etc etc.

My real trouble was simply the idea that there is much of a choice is sorta false when the course of actions almost always lead to a CS falling.

Mine was not a normal scenario IMHO. I had troops on the doorstep. The CS fought like hell. I happen to had excess gold so could gift 4 CBowman. Rome was there to wack the CS then turned his armies on the barbs. And they stupidly kept flowing into Rome's death zones.

One near dead barb left who fled 2 turns prior and is hiding out in the bushes praying for a miracle just to see another day.

Why all show? Make it a Event and Notification "CS leader dies without heir/Military coup/mass plague/etc." and there we are. My being able to affect outcomes felt more like an illusion. Rather it be out of my hands entirely than the falsehood.

That was sort of a better case scenario as far as I was concerned and was turns of work destined for utter failure. My hope for the mechanic would be it forces the player to keep a reasonable regional presence. I'm even more unlikely to do so now than I was before because even in a fortunate scenario, a retreating near corpse defeated an entire CS troops, garrison, defenses, and a Roman death force.

*maybe* if the barbs at least had to stay in the fight it wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Stalker0]

It sems it's working better, I haven't notice this weird behaviour yet.

BTW, the weighting thing for that "distance" calculation doesn't seem to take account of what the tile is going to give to the city, improved or not, or if there is something good in the third ring. Having an herbalist should increase the weighting for a forest tile, having the tech to improve forests with sawmills should increase its value even more, having a simple tile in the second ring adjacent to two 'resource' tiles in the third ring should be prioritized. Roads shouldn't be prioritized until villages can be built. At least that's how I'd do it if I was skilled enough. But it could be that the game doesn't give enough tools for such detail (we non-programmers like to talk big, you know?).

I think this goes to a fundamental question....should the border growth logic be "optimized"? In an optimized scenario, it would go based on pure tile yield, and always get the best tiles as fast as possible. Is that what we want or have it continue to use these more natural equations such as distance, terrain, and presence of roads?

 

[Strigvir]

There is more to border expansion than pure yields.You might want to get that yieldless desert tile in the middle of your empire just to block AI settlers from putting a city in there. Continuous coastline is pretty great to have. In case of UIs, the yields between tiles can vary greatly so just comparing base yields is pretty useless here.

 

[ExpiredReign]

re: border growth
I'm of the opinion that the growth should be logical, but optimised. By that I mean it should fill each ring in succession, perhaps even something as simple as clockwise, before moving to the next ring and start with the best value tile in that ring. Otherwise we will end up with odd tentacles of territory snaking towards "best tiles" and leaving odd gaps in the city's territory.
Having to look at paths and yields and defensive tiles is all well and good but those sort of decisions should be the player's choice which is why there has always been a 'buy tile' option. Even in Civ VI there is a weird bug where the tile the game engine says it is going to expand to, isn't actually the tile it does expand to. Clearly the value of the tile at the start of the logic changes when it comes time to actually get it. Maybe a similar thing is happening here in VP?

For the sake of sanity if everyone knew that the next tile is going to be the next in a specific ring and therefore that sweet resource/terrain/defensive bonus/whatever is going to have to be bought, there wouldn't be this confusion.

This is not to say I don't value the work gone into the code to make these changes, I do, it just seems like it isn't really worth the effort.

 

[CrazyG]

If it went by pure yields wouldn't Carthage claim every sea tile available first? I can see stuff like that being an issue. I don't think it needs to be totally optimal, it just needs to be more optimal than it currently is. Claiming 3 plains tiles before a luxury (all in the second ring) is frustrating to watch

 

[Workerspam]

My real trouble was simply the idea that there is much of a choice is sorta false when the course of actions almost always lead to a CS falling.

Mine was not a normal scenario IMHO. I had troops on the doorstep. The CS fought like hell. I happen to had excess gold so could gift 4 CBowman. Rome was there to wack the CS then turned his armies on the barbs. And they stupidly kept flowing into Rome's death zones.

One near dead barb left who fled 2 turns prior and is hiding out in the bushes praying for a miracle just to see another day.

Not sure if you know but the CS only falls if it also has the "Threatened" tag; the little flame symbol. If that isn't present then the CS will not fall even if barbarians still exist at the end of the event.

The "Threatened" version of the event scenario that does me in is when that last damaged barbarian embarks when I have no ships or ranged units to attack it. Really stings when I've built up a good amount of rep but, hey, forewarned. Figure I had 20 turns to bring the proper units to the forefront.

For the sake of sanity if everyone knew that the next tile is going to be the next in a specific ring and therefore that sweet resource/terrain/defensive bonus/whatever is going to have to be bought, there wouldn't be this confusion.

This is not to say I don't value the work gone into the code to make these changes, I do, it just seems like it isn't really worth the effort.

From previous posts that more fully explained the expansion logic the main problem appears to be the convoluted code Fireaxis used that has no easy work around. The coders are forced to work within the given framework. Hence the expansion problems persist.

I installed the Github update Ilteroi linked to on a previous page and expansion still seems odd compared to earlier versions i.e. desert hills being selected over luxury grassland in the same ring, a city state having an empty grassland plot selected over it's grassland luxury resource plot (and both well after a featureless jungle plot, though both of the former were over a river). That may be the "pick a random plot out of the top 3" aspect but don't remember previous versions working that way; seemed like if one plot was clearly better than others it was selected.

Plots with roads having high priority makes sense since you lose road connections if another civ steals the plot; that can be a major blow to early happiness. Looking at you Shoshone.

 

[tu_79]

I think this goes to a fundamental question....should the border growth logic be "optimized"? In an optimized scenario, it would go based on pure tile yield, and always get the best tiles as fast as possible. Is that what we want or have it continue to use these more natural equations such as distance, terrain, and presence of roads?

It depends of what your city has. Initially you value yields over terrain because you don't have any building that gives yields. Later, when your city and specialists have the thing under control, then they aren't so valuable.

EDIT. If it has to be mutually exclusive, then I'll favor yields. My take is that this automatic land grabbing is something your citizens do on their own, thus motivated by profit. You, as the ruler, will take care of the tactical territories (by tile purchasing).

EDIT2. OTOH, if AI is going to expand borders with this same script and it never purchases tiles, then it can be a disadvantage for the AI.

 

[infidel88]

If it went by pure yields wouldn't Carthage claim every sea tile available first? I can see stuff like that being an issue. I don't think it needs to be totally optimal, it just needs to be more optimal than it currently is. Claiming 3 plains tiles before a luxury (all in the second ring) is frustrating to watch

This can be easily fixed by putting weight to yields. I already wrote before how I think this should work:
Upon growth if you have tile X possible, take it, otherwise move to next point:
1. Natural Wonders (this is kinda questionable though)
2. Strategic resources (sorted by total yield)
3. Luxuries (sorted by total yield)
4. Bonus resources (sorted by total yield)
5. Tile with best total yield (including your buildings and every other bonus, dream would be even to consider civs UA)

Tile value in my opinion is: food - 11 points, production - 14 points, gold - 10 points, science - 12 points, culture - 13 points, faith - 10 points. This is just my bias though and can be discussed. I am hammers man and will always prefer to get that hill tile over anything else withouth bonuses

I am not a big fan of expanding via roads, even if this is logical.

 

[tu_79]

This can be easily fixed by putting weight to yields. I already wrote before how I think this should work:
Upon growth if you have tile X possible, take it, otherwise move to next point:
1. Natural Wonders (this is kinda questionable though)
2. Strategic resources (sorted by total yield)
3. Luxuries (sorted by total yield)
4. Bonus resources (sorted by total yield)
5. Tile with best total yield (including your buildings and every other bonus, dream would be even to consider civs UA)

Tile value in my opinion is: food - 11 points, production - 14 points, gold - 10 points, science - 12 points, culture - 13 points, faith - 10 points. This is just my bias though and can be discussed. I am hammers man and will always prefer to get that hill tile over anything else withouth bonuses

I am not a big fan of expanding via roads, even if this is logical.

Instead of giving arbitrary points to food/production/gold, I'd rather look at what the city lacks more, beginning with food. This is more dynamic and can change upon ages. If gold is an issue in the city (as the unhappiness can take acount) then tiles with gold are more valuable. If the city isn't growing in an acceptable rate (looking at the food/pop rate), then food is more valuable. If there is boredom unhappiness in the city, increase the value of tiles with culture.
I'm not a fan of roads marking the way, either, but it is reallistic to value them (entrepeneurs have an easier time if there is some infrastructure).

 

[CrazyG]

This can be easily fixed by putting weight to yields. I already wrote before how I think this should work:
Upon growth if you have tile X possible, take it, otherwise move to next point:
1. Natural Wonders (this is kinda questionable though)
2. Strategic resources (sorted by total yield)
3. Luxuries (sorted by total yield)
4. Bonus resources (sorted by total yield)
5. Tile with best total yield (including your buildings and every other bonus, dream would be even to consider civs UA)

I think this list is solid. IMO its OK to just have ties randomly selected rather than by yield, or determined by things such as a road or distance (whatever the game currently does). Because in this list, you would still get every coast tile before empty plains tiles if you have a light house, unless you are factoring the improvments which can be built (and I have a feeling this gets too complicated). In theory its would be easy to give tile type X an extra point of priority for being a certain civ or having a certain pantheon (I think, not a coder but that sounds do able right?)

I really just want to see a stop to empty tiles getting picked before that marble in the second row, which is clearly wrong and can have a pretty significant impact on early city development.

 

[Gazebo]

We aren't planning on changing the code in such drastic ways. We are simply optimizing the design laid out by firaxis.

 

[tu_79]

I think this list is solid. IMO its OK to just have ties randomly selected rather than by yield, or determined by things such as a road or distance (whatever the game currently does). Because in this list, you would still get every coast tile before empty plains tiles if you have a light house, unless you are factoring the improvments which can be built (and I have a feeling this gets too complicated). In theory its would be easy to give tile type X an extra point of priority for being a certain civ or having a certain pantheon (I think, not a coder but that sounds do able right?)

I really just want to see a stop to empty tiles getting picked before that marble in the second row, which is clearly wrong and can have a pretty significant impact on early city development.

Ilteroi has already fixed this. Check his patch.

We aren't planning on changing the code in such drastic ways. We are simply optimizing the design laid out by firaxis.

But it is so much fun discussing this!

 

[Finarvi]

I think this list is solid. IMO its OK to just have ties randomly selected rather than by yield, or determined by things such as a road or distance (whatever the game currently does). Because in this list, you would still get every coast tile before empty plains tiles if you have a light house, unless you are factoring the improvments which can be built (and I have a feeling this gets too complicated). In theory its would be easy to give tile type X an extra point of priority for being a certain civ or having a certain pantheon (I think, not a coder but that sounds do able right?)

I really just want to see a stop to empty tiles getting picked before that marble in the second row, which is clearly wrong and can have a pretty significant impact on early city development.

That's an interesting standpoint. There are many things that should determine tile value and yield diversity could be one.

 

[infidel88]

Aside of border growth. Can you add ability to upgrade units in vassal lands to exploitation?

 

[ElliotS]

Aside of border growth. Can you add ability to upgrade units in vassal lands to exploitation?

Bruh, vassals already so good tho. There needs to be SOME downsides to farming your expansion out to vassals.

 

[ElliotS]

We aren't planning on changing the code in such drastic ways. We are simply optimizing the design laid out by firaxis.

How long would it take to add the expansion tile selection as an optional checkbox like raging or chill barbarians? Even if you couldn't add an automate checkbox for when the game got later, I'd still use it if it was available. (Assuming Whoward would let us use it, but from my brief interactions with him I'd guess he'd okay it if asked.)