New Version - July 18th (7/18)

[Jarula]

Gazebo any thoughts to my ideas for ideology reinvigoration? Honestly all of the other changes you've done with this mod have been beyond awesome but this is something really lacking. If you want to look at things from a historical perspective the advent of ideologies was formulative in the foundation of WWI and WWII as well as much of the progress of history... they already are pretty exciting when you do have players duking it out for ideologies...

Another idea is to drop like I do personally the negative tourism modifier for ideologies to 95% but even then it still doesn't help quite that much by industrial All three ideology wonders never get built...

Or maybe a simple change would be change the difference between the levels with ideological discontent. The part where they create some extra unhappiness etc... if the levels were doubled... that would be good...

 

[Txurce]

In the code, the 'value' of free tenets is actually not all that great. I feel like this is RNGesus playing a joke on us, but I'll look at the numbers. You can look at your own in the PolicyAILog file.

G

If that's the case, then why not revert to the original "2 for the first"?

@wobuffet: that's what we had until this official patch. The "leadr" that benefits is only ahead in culture, so it's not necessarily killing competition.

 

[tu_79]

To add diversity at ideologies, but avoiding snowballing I suggested a mechanic that gave more free tenets to late adopters, and also more free tenets for picking the least adopted ideology.

The first one to pick ideology gets nothing free.
The second one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get one free tenet.
If there are two followers of A, the third one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get two free tenets. If there are one follower of A and one follower of B, the third can follow A or B to get nothing free, or pick C for one free tenet.
If there are just three followers of A and none of the others, the fourth can gain three free tenets if choosing differently.
If there are 2 A followers and 1 B followers, the 4th may get 1 free tenet for following B or 2 free tenets for following C.

The formula is:
FreeTenetsThisIdeology=(Max(NumAdoptersAnyIdeology)) - (NumAdoptersThisIdeology)

I think this will work this way: For first adopters, they may choose to follow the others for the friendship bonuses (friendship vs 1 free tenet), but later adopters have more to gain for choosing differently. The most polarized the world is, the most benefitial is to think differently.

The only problem with this is that early adopters are usually culturally leading, influential civs, that push every other civs towards their chosen ideology. Now there is a time of grace before it starts to make people unhappy, but I don't know if that would be enough.

 

[Owlbebach]

To add diversity at ideologies, but avoiding snowballing I suggested a mechanic that gave more free tenets to late adopters, and also more free tenets for picking the least adopted ideology.

The first one to pick ideology gets nothing free.
The second one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get one free tenet.
If there are two followers of A, the third one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get two free tenets. If there are one follower of A and one follower of B, the third can follow A or B to get nothing free, or pick C for one free tenet.
If there are just three followers of A and none of the others, the fourth can gain three free tenets if choosing differently.
If there are 2 A followers and 1 B followers, the 4th may get 1 free tenet for following B or 2 free tenets for following C.

The formula is:
FreeTenetsThisIdeology=(Max(NumAdoptersAnyIdeology)) - (NumAdoptersThisIdeology)

I think this will work this way: For first adopters, they may choose to follow the others for the friendship bonuses (friendship vs 1 free tenet), but later adopters have more to gain for choosing differently. The most polarized the world is, the most benefitial is to think differently.

The only problem with this is that early adopters are usually culturally leading, influential civs, that push every other civs towards their chosen ideology. Now there is a time of grace before it starts to make people unhappy, but I don't know if that would be enough.

That was what i was thinking about, but you suggestion will lead to situation where player will try to avoid adopting ideology, especially if player is aiming at tourism victory. It would be better to grant 1 tenet to first adopter and 2 tenets to first adopter of other ideologies

 

[Gokudo01]

To add diversity at ideologies, but avoiding snowballing I suggested a mechanic that gave more free tenets to late adopters, and also more free tenets for picking the least adopted ideology.

The first one to pick ideology gets nothing free.
The second one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get one free tenet.
If there are two followers of A, the third one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get two free tenets. If there are one follower of A and one follower of B, the third can follow A or B to get nothing free, or pick C for one free tenet.
If there are just three followers of A and none of the others, the fourth can gain three free tenets if choosing differently.
If there are 2 A followers and 1 B followers, the 4th may get 1 free tenet for following B or 2 free tenets for following C.

The formula is:
FreeTenetsThisIdeology=(Max(NumAdoptersAnyIdeology)) - (NumAdoptersThisIdeology)

I think this will work this way: For first adopters, they may choose to follow the others for the friendship bonuses (friendship vs 1 free tenet), but later adopters have more to gain for choosing differently. The most polarized the world is, the most benefitial is to think differently.

The only problem with this is that early adopters are usually culturally leading, influential civs, that push every other civs towards their chosen ideology. Now there is a time of grace before it starts to make people unhappy, but I don't know if that would be enough.

Something I don't understand with ideology is that you are punished for being the first unlocking ideology because unless you've got at least 2 policies over the second contender, (which is almost never the case unless you are playing poland ) you will be f.. because you prioritised culture.

SP leader has already lost many things, they used to be able to choose their wonder now I feel like I'm more often limited by science than culture. You get your policies later compare to your science which already lead to less impact into the game. For example, when I pick Mercantilism, it used to make a big swing in my science and culture output. nowday I don't feel like it adds over 10% of my output.
So I don't understand the need to punish the first that pick ideology.

It's like building Manhattan/apolo project gave nuclear device/Great scientist to anybody except the first one....
Or
Buildings cost more hammer to the tech leader.

 

[Psikus]

If that's the case, then why not revert to the original "2 for the first"?

If the original "2 free tenets for first adopter" was too prone to snowballing, maybe that could be fixed by keeping the reward but delaying it. Say, first adopter gets one free tenet, then another one the first time someone else adopts that ideology. I don't know how easy it would be for the AI to properly evaluate this, though.

 

[Funak]

Something I don't understand with ideology is that you are punished for being the first unlocking ideology because unless you've got at least 2 policies over the second contender, (which is almost never the case unless you are playing poland ) you will be f.. because you prioritised culture.

SP leader has already lost many things, they used to be able to choose their wonder now I feel like I'm more often limited by science than culture. You get your policies later compare to your science which already lead to less impact into the game. For example, when I pick Mercantilism, it used to make a big swing in my science and culture output. nowday I don't feel like it adds over 10% of my output.
So I don't understand the need to punish the first that pick ideology.

It's like building Manhattan/apolo project gave nuclear device/Great scientist to anybody except the first one....
Or
Buildings cost more hammer to the tech leader.

Exactly. I definitely don't think the first one picking should get a boon, but punishing the first one picking just feels really silly.

 

[tu_79]

Exactly. I definitely don't think the first one picking should get a boon, but punishing the first one picking just feels really silly.

The first adopter is already influencing the whole world, leaning the rest towards his chosen ideology, even if it's not the best for the others. This is only a counter measure.

 

[Owlbebach]

Something I don't understand with ideology is that you are punished for being the first unlocking ideology because unless you've got at least 2 policies over the second contender, (which is almost never the case unless you are playing poland ) you will be f.. because you prioritised culture.

SP leader has already lost many things, they used to be able to choose their wonder now I feel like I'm more often limited by science than culture. You get your policies later compare to your science which already lead to less impact into the game. For example, when I pick Mercantilism, it used to make a big swing in my science and culture output. nowday I don't feel like it adds over 10% of my output.
So I don't understand the need to punish the first that pick ideology.

It's like building Manhattan/apolo project gave nuclear device/Great scientist to anybody except the first one....
Or
Buildings cost more hammer to the tech leader.

I understand your point, but the comparison is not correct. You are not punished by unhappiness for not building a wonder or not building Apollo program. First one should definitely get a bonus, but we need to give a reason to others to choose different ideology. On the other hand the first one to adopt ideology is already a leader. Giving 2 free tenets to world leader seems a bit wrong - every policy is extremely valuable AND more policies = more wonders, as result it leads to a situation where 2-3 leaders compete for the win while everyone else is 1 era behind.

Ideally it should be like this: Those who adopt first and second - have free tenets, while players who adopt ideology later have a discount to culture cost of already adopted tenets. But as far as i understand it cant be done

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

To add diversity at ideologies, but avoiding snowballing I suggested a mechanic that gave more free tenets to late adopters, and also more free tenets for picking the least adopted ideology.

The first one to pick ideology gets nothing free.
The second one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get one free tenet.
If there are two followers of A, the third one may choose to follow A and get nothing free, or pick B or C and get two free tenets. If there are one follower of A and one follower of B, the third can follow A or B to get nothing free, or pick C for one free tenet.
If there are just three followers of A and none of the others, the fourth can gain three free tenets if choosing differently.
If there are 2 A followers and 1 B followers, the 4th may get 1 free tenet for following B or 2 free tenets for following C.

The formula is:
FreeTenetsThisIdeology=(Max(NumAdoptersAnyIdeology)) - (NumAdoptersThisIdeology)

I think this will work this way: For first adopters, they may choose to follow the others for the friendship bonuses (friendship vs 1 free tenet), but later adopters have more to gain for choosing differently. The most polarized the world is, the most benefitial is to think differently.

The only problem with this is that early adopters are usually culturally leading, influential civs, that push every other civs towards their chosen ideology. Now there is a time of grace before it starts to make people unhappy, but I don't know if that would be enough.

This is an awful solution. So if Askia and Montezuma are both the runaways of the game and about to pick an ideology, the one who picks it first - even if he does it mere 5 turns earlier - is punished and crippled as a result, getting one policy less? I find any sort of "do better to get penalised" systems to be terrible ideas in 4X game, especially considering an AI won't understand it should cripple its Culture output for a few turns if someone else is about same as you and about to pick an ideology so you get a free sopol. The current system is probably the best. Rewards of this magnitude for falling behind are a bad idea, it'd be better to further reward first pickers as that'd actually encourage various ideological choices rather than encouraging crippling your science/culture in some cases for a few turns.

 

[Workerspam]

The current ideology system appears to be specifically designed to limit options once the cultural leader or leaders choose an ideology; if you aren't one of the influential leaders you follow or suffer the consequences. I'm not sure adding some rewards on top of the current system helps gameplay. Seems like sprinkling sugar atop poison; sure if you put enough on someone might be tempted to eat it but that doesn't make it a good idea.

If the consensus is that ideological variety is more interesting or more fun than wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the punishment for following different ideologies? You could boost the rewards for following the ideologies of influential civs to keep the choice meaningful beyond personal preference/ideological optimization but you would have the option to pick an alternate ideology that better fits your goals without crippling yourself down the line. Instead of 1 or 2 civs that drag dissenting ideologies down maybe you could potentially have 2-3 coalitions that raise each other up.

 

[tu_79]

This is an awful solution. So if Askia and Montezuma are both the runaways of the game and about to pick an ideology, the one who picks it first - even if he does it mere 5 turns earlier - is punished and crippled as a result, getting one policy less? I find any sort of "do better to get penalised" systems to be terrible ideas in 4X game, especially considering an AI won't understand it should cripple its Culture output for a few turns if someone else is about same as you and about to pick an ideology so you get a free sopol. The current system is probably the best. Rewards of this magnitude for falling behind are a bad idea, it'd be better to further reward first pickers as that'd actually encourage various ideological choices rather than encouraging crippling your science/culture in some cases for a few turns.

I disagree. Many 4x games include some sort of comeback mechanic that punishes the leader. Even this one. No one complaints that civs that get second to techs can research them faster. Why? Because leading in techs is so good, that even letting the backward civs research faster is not enough for them to win. But at least they can offer a better challenge.
And actually, with what I suggested, I'm not punishing the cultural leader, just denying him the extra bonuses. I'm giving bonuses to the culturally backwards, so they can be of some challenge again.

If you want to win a science victory, you don't fall behind counting on comeback mechanics for easing your victory. You try to be always leading, and that's the way for winning.

EDIT. Whatever. I think that would be much simpler to not give any free tenet to anyone. Easier to explain. Easier to understand. Prevents snowballing a little.

If the consensus is that ideological variety is more interesting or more fun than wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the punishment for following different ideologies?

Yeah, that we asked for. We got a period of grace instead.

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah, that we asked for. We got a period of grace instead.

You got what the DLL can handle within the hard-coded limits of the enum pool. I did my best, don't be sassy.

G

 

[Txurce]

You got what the DLL can handle within the hard-coded limits of the enum pool. I did my best, don't be sassy.

Why wouldn't dialing down the effect of ideologies be more balanced, in that it benefits the civ that has invested in culture/tourism, while not crippling those that take a different path? (Not that I care too much about benefiting those civs!)

On a related note, ideological diversity would be increased if the happiness penalty weren't crippling, and the appeal of taking a different ideology (free tenet) were available again. If first adopters get two, and second adopters get one free tenet, the advantage to the leaders isn't that huge (and doesn't matter as much, except in the case of runaways). The real loisers are the bottom dwellers, if they're still in the game, and by then their fate is foretold.

 

[tu_79]

If the consensus is that ideological variety is more interesting or more fun than wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the punishment for following different ideologies?

You got what the DLL can handle within the hard-coded limits of the enum pool. I did my best, don't be sassy.

G

Didn't mean it was your fault. Sorry if it looks like that.

 

[Gazebo]

Why wouldn't dialing down the effect of ideologies be more balanced, in that it benefits the civ that has invested in culture/tourism, while not crippling those that take a different path? (Not that I care too much about benefiting those civs!)

On a related note, ideological diversity would be increased if the happiness penalty weren't crippling, and the appeal of taking a different ideology (free tenet) were available again. If first adopters get two, and second adopters get one free tenet, the advantage to the leaders isn't that huge (and doesn't matter as much, except in the case of runaways). The real loisers are the bottom dwellers, if they're still in the game, and by then their fate is foretold.

It was already widely agreed that first adopters getting an extra bonus simply snowballs their lead.

I don't have time to fully explain it all right now, however the reality is that there are only four 'states' for public opinion:

PUBLIC_OPINION_CONTENT,
    PUBLIC_OPINION_DISSIDENTS,
    PUBLIC_OPINION_CIVIL_RESISTANCE,
    PUBLIC_OPINION_REVOLUTIONARY_WAVE,

That's it. These values are static thresholds, and the unhappiness modifiers tied to them are static values. I won't edit this, as that could potentially wreak havoc with a lot of mods (and would alter CP gameplay to an extend I'm not comfortable with). So, here we are.

G

 

[Enginseer]

It's weird though how people are getting these bugs, it's like they got onto my WCR Beta version where you can get random events of decrease in global public opinion for 30 turns and such...

 

[wobuffet]

I see now: a Free Tenet/Policy is too powerful an advantage for Culture leaders because it persists for the rest of the game.

How about a different kind of bonus altogether then?

• "First to adopt" bonus is a -25% reduction to Unhappiness from Ideological Pressure.
• If the first Civ to adopt a particular Ideology switches to another one, this bonus transfers to the second Civ that adopted that Ideology.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I like Wobuffet's idea, and I'd also recommend a temporary tourism bonus (perhaps both positive and negative) for the first ideology adopters. It'd be a temporary benefit, not as immediately translatable into more power/as powerful (as an additional social policy), but it would still be a reason for civs to choose a different ideology.

 

[tu_79]

I see now: a Free Tenet/Policy is too powerful an advantage for Culture leaders because it persists for the rest of the game.

How about a different kind of bonus altogether then?

• "First to adopt" bonus is a -25% reduction to Unhappiness from Ideological Pressure.
• If the first Civ to adopt a particular Ideology switches to another one, this bonus transfers to the second Civ that adopted that Ideology.

First adopters are the ones causing the rest to switch.

I still think it's better to remove the free tenets for everybody and let rng or chosen victory type decide what ideology is chosen for every AI.