New Version - July 17th (7-17)

[CrazyG]

6 cities is considered wide? Around 6 or 7 core ones and sometimes 1 or 2 overseas has been my go to for a tall tradition game. Does map size matter on that?

I'm on a standard map size, it matters.

No, 6 cities isn't wide, but my point is that with 6 cities, I have more than 50 spare happiness, so I could settle 4 new cities that each had 10 unhappiness, and I'd still be happy. Unless you go really, really wide (which probably means warmongering), happiness is pretty easy by about the medieval era.

 

[Rekk]

@Kim Dong Un
I think your game won't really end up well, and that's why I think that your Huns example is not enough to prove something, I'm sorry if I do sound rude. The follower belief you're following as well as your monopoly is mostly for tall play which is bad for warmongering or even wide civs.

Only because food is currently bad for wide.

The issue is that a wide civ's needs to be X% higher quality than a tall civ's in order to manage happiness, while getting fewer great people overall and a lower proportion of the population as specialists.

Part of this is alleviated in that a wide civ's lower population cities don't run out of good tiles, but those tiles are still on average worse than the tall civ's, while each demands more to be produced from those tiles in order to remain happy.

 

[Rekk]

6 cities is considered wide? Around 6 or 7 core ones and sometimes 1 or 2 overseas has been my go to for a tall tradition game. Does map size matter on that?

Absolutely map size matters. Large maps are more lenient with city number.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

The normal Continents map often creates little islands like this and even before the happiness issue there's usually little reason to settle those unless you can scoop them up fast and early with polynesia or Carthage or if they have your monopoly luxury.

It's too bad that there isn't more strategic value in such islands. IRL, the USA controlling Hawaii gives them a tremendous strategic advantage in the Pacific ocean and, to put it in Civ terms, let's them control trade routes, back up their "pledge to protect" "City States" like Hong Kong, etc and to project military pressure on rivals like China

Very much this.

Also, how is there no value or reasoning other than the simple fact that Siam's empire has dwindled significantly to the point of annihilation? There's no point in throwing a pioneer down at any point over the last 150 turns after he's been vassalized? That's what the human player would do regardless of the little available production. The fact there's a luxury present and nobody cares only furthers the argument that maybe they should be more valuable again. There's another situation from the same game involving marble right behind Greece, who's failed to grab it - a lux he doesn't natively have in any other city, by the way - even though he's been sitting on 4 cities as my vassal since turn 250...

We all advocate for as much realism as we can, yet this fun and interesting mechanic of mid/late game expansion through settling foreign and distant new lands, has been evidently thrown to the wayside and can even be detrimental. Why?

 

[glider1]

Hah, see? Didn't take too long to lure one of the big boys out of the woodwork...

I knew I was traversing through dangerous lands. I've prepared and strapped on my Toe Stepping boots!

Kim, the problem is I think the argument that wide is too micro is busted for two reasons.

The user interface for Civ5 is already broken for wide. Moving units causes RSI in your wrists, hands, shoulders it is literally bad for your health (if you do it long enough). Second reason is that the domination VC is busted. The AI cannot play it.

Solution is ..... well there is no solution (EDIT: bar completely redesigning the mod for low unit counts on wide play which is a massive undertaking).

Leave it so playing tall is good for lovers of low micro.
Leave it so playing wide is for lovers of micro who are prepared for the risks that RSI brings with the compensation that they get a lot of fine-grain flavour (revolts, rebellions etc).

Design the mod for that aim and it will suit all types of players by making it clear that wide is supposed to be micro-intensive.

 

[dostillevi]

Warmonger AI is known to conquer it's continent, so when we're talking about an AI domination victory why aren't we talking more about navies?

 

[Viralvoid]

Only because food is currently bad for wide.
.

Yuh, he has asceticism and a food monopoly which directly causes excessive growth.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Kim, the problem is I think the argument that wide is too micro is busted for two reasons.

The user interface for Civ5 is already broken for wide. Moving units causes RSI in your wrists, hands, shoulders it is literally bad for your health (if you do it long enough). Second reason is that the domination VC is busted. The AI cannot play it.

Solution is ..... well there is no solution (EDIT: bar completely redesigning the mod for low unit counts on wide play which is a massive undertaking).

Leave it so playing tall is good for lovers of low micro.
Leave it so playing wide is for lovers of micro who are prepared for the risks that RSI brings with the compensation that they get a lot of fine-grain flavour (revolts, rebellions etc).

Design the mod for that aim and it will suit all types of players by making it clear that wide is supposed to be micro-intensive.

When you put it that way, this is a bluntly honest and to the point assessment that I can live with. Nothing will be perfect and you can't please everyone, so I'll stick with that perspective.

Thank you for this response and for the PSA to all members about the RSI

 

[azum4roll]

On warmonger unhappiness, I think this patch encourages annexing more than puppeting. Puppets are not in a good spot; they give unhappiness from population AND increase empire modifier, but produce much less yields. Annexing gives double the empire modifier as a puppet, but more than double the yields and most likely less unhappiness after you get its infrastructure back on track.

Razing a city has no downside whatsoever now that your tech/policy cost drops back down when it's completely razed to the ground, but there's no advantage as well, so it's always an option but won't be profitable.

My suggestion:

- Remove puppet raising empire modifier (back to how it worked in older versions)
- Slightly lower unhappiness from puppet population
- Slightly lower puppet yields if puppets prove to be too good after buff

So puppets would be distinctive from annexed cities: the former to provide a foothold for aggression, and the latter to provide yields and build units. If a conquered city fills neither role, it should be razed.

 

[Bhawb]

In Medieval as Songhai and happiness has basically solved itself already. 6 city Progress and 2 points into Statecraft and my happiness is 3x what my unhappiness is (33/11). I had to freeze growth for a little while very early on because I settled 6 cities pretty quickly, but I don't think I'll have many issues from now on since I'm punching Indonesia's face in and plan to steal all of their luxuries and Fur monopoly.

 

[John.B.C]

Never really had any issues with happiness, except during heavy expansion and the lack of infrastructure to support it, when I was down at 50% (then trading for luxuries becomes pretty important - oh, and befriending merchantile city-states).

12 cities, 1720 ad, happiness 102/71

Spoiler happiness :