New Version - June 21st (6/21)

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

AI Optimizations/Improvements/Bugfixes:

• Small adjustments to AI settlement logic (should forward settle a little bit less)
• Speed optimizations to a few AI operation routines
• Adjust scaling value of food for city governors (should value tiles a bit more overall than now)
• Adjusted AI specialist value to more effectively account for happiness/unhappiness from specialists
• Small bugfixes and feature requests (Anarchy notification, free tiles goody hut to nearest city, etc.)
• Improvements to AI production logic when at war (will run continual processes less often)
• AI military logic adjusted a little (less likely to see units poached from larger operations for smaller ones)

Balance (CBP):

• Happiness/Unhappiness variables adjusted a bit
• Is now 1% per point of unhappiness, up to a max of 30%
• Positive happiness now boosts national yields and city growth, up to a max of 15% (15 happiness) - this should be a nice 'catch-up' mechanic for smaller civs, as they usually have much more happiness than larger civs
• Terrain/Improvement/Resource changes:
• Plantations, Forts, and Villages now remove jungles again (was an odd decision to begin with, as it makes no agricultural/settlement sense AND had the side-effect of making some resources too strong)
• The only improvements that retain jungles/forests are lumbermills, camps, and brazilwood camps (this is by design)
• Fishing boats now all provide +1 food at base (should boost all coastal cities a little bit)
• Lighthouses no longer uniquely buffs fish - all sea resources now simply get +1 production (in addition to coastal yield buff)
• Plantations provide +1 gold (was in 6-19 version, but consolidating change here)
• Pastures provide +1 food
• Quarries provide +1 production
• Camps provide +1 gold
• Buffed GP improvements by +1 yield (base)
• Buffed Shoshone Encampment (+1 to all yields)

New version inbound...now!
G

 

[DLimited]

Does this mean Rebels still spawn at -20, but yield deficits scale further down until -30?

 

[Strigvir]

Giving bonus yield for positive happiness is imo a bad decision (the one BE made too).
Smaller civs don't have much problems catching up, because they have less science/culture penalty.
Probably it's more of a civ5 fault with term naming, but mechanically "happiness" in this game is more like stability. So you either can have a stable nation or various degrees of instability in it.
Right now you effectively increased the "stability cap" by 15 happiness and thus further increased penalties for negative happiness.

 

[Gazebo]

Giving bonus yield for positive happiness is imo a bad decision (the one BE made too).
Smaller civs don't have much problems catching up, because they have less science/culture penalty.
Probably it's more of a civ5 fault with term naming, but mechanically "happiness" in this game is more like stability. So you either can have a stable nation or various degrees of instability in it.
Right now you effectively increased the "stability cap" by 15 happiness and thus further increased penalties for negative happiness.

Which is, ultimately, a good thing. It shouldn't be too punishing to be at -5 or -10 unhappiness (relatively), but players who are focusing on happiness should have smaller interim bonuses punctuated by golden ages. I say give it a try before you decide it is good or bad.
G

 

[WileyNg]

Plantations, Forts, and Villages now remove jungles again (was an odd decision to begin with, as it makes no agricultural/settlement sense AND had the side-effect of making some resources too strong)

I like this.
Thanks Gazebo.

 

[Funak]

AI Optimizations/Improvements/Bugfixes:
Small adjustments to AI settlement logic (should forward settle a little bit less)
Speed optimizations to a few AI operation routines
Adjust scaling value of food for city governors (should value tiles a bit more overall than now)
Adjusted AI specialist value to more effectively account for happiness/unhappiness from specialists
Small bugfixes and feature requests (Anarchy notification, free tiles goody hut to nearest city, etc.)
Improvements to AI production logic when at war (will run continual processes less often)
AI military logic adjusted a little (less likely to see units poached from larger operations for smaller ones)

I love changes that include "Optimization" and "Improvements" you don't really need to judge them.

Balance (CBP):
Happiness/Unhappiness variables adjusted a bit
Is now 1% per point of unhappiness, up to a max of 30%

Not actually sure this was necessary, if you reach -20 unhappiness you've really screwed something up and you probably deserves the -40%, but that might just be me being a hateful person .

Positive happiness now boosts national yields and city growth, up to a max of 15% (15 happiness) - this should be a nice 'catch-up' mechanic for smaller civs, as they usually have much more happiness than larger civs

I've been thinking about this ever since I first saw the mechanic in BE. Honestly I'm not sure it is a good fit, which is why I haven't suggested it. It might work better with the current happiness-system where you're pretty low all the time. Golden-ages might not be enough of a reward for stacking happiness anymore considering there are both other ways to get GAP and with how generally low all happiness is it's going to take ages reaching the numbers required for a natural GA.

All in all I'm willing to give it a try, nice initiative.

Terrain/Improvement/Resource changes:
Plantations, Forts, and Villages now remove jungles again (was an odd decision to begin with, as it makes no agricultural/settlement sense AND had the side-effect of making some resources too strong)
The only improvements that retain jungles/forests are lumbermills, camps, and brazilwood camps (this is by design)
Fishing boats now all provide +1 food at base (should boost all coastal cities a little bit)
Lighthouses no longer uniquely buffs fish - all sea resources now simply get +1 production (in addition to coastal yield buff)
Plantations provide +1 gold (was in 6-19 version, but consolidating change here)
Pastures provide +1 food
Quarries provide +1 production
Camps provide +1 gold
Buffed GP improvements by +1 yield (base)
Buffed Shoshone Encampment (+1 to all yields)

Yay, you went with my suggestions


Only problem I have with this is that copper, silver, gold, gems, jade, amber, lapiz went unchanged, it breaks the symmetry I guess actually changing resource yields is a lot more work, especially if you need to change the ones in more luxuries aswell.


Another thing I noticed recently is that the Holy-site is extremely underpowered compared to the other GPI, it starts out with just 2 faith, which is less than all the other ones. Which in my eyes gets even weirder since faith is a yield that most people value lower than most other yields, and the fact that you can logically only get your first natural holy-site at 2400 total faith with the recent changes to great prophets.

Otherwise, great work as usual.

Does this mean Rebels still spawn at -20, but yield deficits scale further down until -30?

I thought you got rebels at -10 and cityflipping at -20, ofc that only happened after ideologies.

Right now you effectively increased the "stability cap" by 15 happiness and thus further increased penalties for negative happiness.

The penalty for unhappiness was also cut in half from -2% yields per unhappiness to just -1% so I don't really think this increases the penalties for negative happiness. It is probably a net buff.

 

[Delekhan]

I'm happy to see that all of the yield changes, happiness changes, and small tweaks are savegame compatible! (though I imagine the AI and governor tweaks aren't).

I noticed that my sea resources are now getting +1 production from fishing boats in addition to +1 production from the lighthouse. Is this intentional? With a lighthouse, improved fish now get 2 production.

With Japan and God of the Sea, my fish tiles are now getting 13 yields, before technology buffs to fishing boats! (8 food, 2 production, 2 culture, 1 faith) Super coastal cities ftw!

 

[ecgopher]

My main concern with the positive happiness buff is it could further snowball the late game leader. Basically, I've found that once you get a few ideology polices, happiness shoots up to 100+ and you can forget about worrying about happiness for the rest of the game. This could accelerate the runaway of the first civs to get ideologies.

I do think it could be a fun mechanic though. I'd suggest that you need 1 happiness per era per 1% boost to help it scale better into the late game.

 

[Funak]

I'm happy to see that all of the yield changes, happiness changes, and small tweaks are savegame compatible! (though I imagine the AI and governor tweaks aren't).

I noticed that my sea resources are now getting +1 production from fishing boats in addition to +1 production from the lighthouse. Is this intentional? With a lighthouse, improved fish now get 2 production.

With Japan and God of the Sea, my fish tiles are now getting 13 yields, before technology buffs to fishing boats! (8 food, 2 production, 2 culture, 1 faith) Super coastal cities ftw!

How many techs in are you? Fishingboats get some bonuses from techs afaik. Otherwise that sounds really weird to be honest.

My main concern with the positive happiness buff is it could further snowball the late game leader. Basically, I've found that once you get a few ideology polices, happiness shoots up to 100+ and you can forget about worrying about happiness for the rest of the game. This could accelerate the runaway of the first civs to get ideologies.

I do think it could be a fun mechanic though. I'd suggest that you need 1 happiness per era per 1% boost to help it scale better into the late game.

I don't usually play that far, but do happiness really scale that out of control lategame? Anyways the 15% cap should be good enough to balance that out eitherway.

 

[Gazebo]

I'm happy to see that all of the yield changes, happiness changes, and small tweaks are savegame compatible! (though I imagine the AI and governor tweaks aren't).

I noticed that my sea resources are now getting +1 production from fishing boats in addition to +1 production from the lighthouse. Is this intentional? With a lighthouse, improved fish now get 2 production.

With Japan and God of the Sea, my fish tiles are now getting 13 yields, before technology buffs to fishing boats! (8 food, 2 production, 2 culture, 1 faith) Super coastal cities ftw!

I imagine that the cache wasn't cleared, so the old values were mixed with the new.

G

 

[ecgopher]

I don't usually play that far, but do happiness really scale that out of control lategame? Anyways the 15% cap should be good enough to balance that out eitherway.

It varies depending upon the game exactly how many ideology policies I need before happiness becomes irrelevant, but it always becomes irrelevant after a certain point. Usually after 4-6 ideology policies though.

 

[Funak]

It varies depending upon the game exactly how many ideology policies I need before happiness becomes irrelevant, but it always becomes irrelevant after a certain point. Usually after 4-6 ideology policies though.

Maybe some of the ideology tenets needs some down-tuning in that case? Or maybe you're not expanding at all, in which case you should probably get the 15% bonus.

 

[Strigvir]

Which is, ultimately, a good thing. It shouldn't be too punishing to be at -5 or -10 unhappiness (relatively)

But you didn't change anything? -10 unhappiness in new system gives even more penalty than the old one (-25% of effective penalty versus -20%, while -5 is -20% versus -10%).

 

[ecgopher]

Maybe some of the ideology tenets needs some down-tuning in that case? Or maybe you're not expanding at all, in which case you should probably get the 15% bonus.

Just the opposite. I usually go super, super, super wide. It's the per city/in every city bonuses that especially tend to over scale as a result.

Edit: To be clear, usually 20-30 cities (enough to fill my own continent on huge tectonic maps)

 

[Crimson13]

Well not gonna lie, I'm pretty bummed about the plantations removing forest/jungles. Everything else looks good though.

Unless there's an option to turn it on/off in a file like some of the others things though. I do that with seeing Barbarian camps and wonder cost increase personally.

 

[Funak]

But you didn't change anything? -10 unhappiness in new system gives even more penalty than the old one (-25% of effective penalty versus -20%, while -5 is -20% versus -10%).

You're being completely unreasonable. By your calculations the happiness count should start at positive 15, meaning if you drop down to -10 unhappiness you're by your calculations at -25 with the old system, and you're suffering less than(because math) -25% yields. while with the old system at -25 happiness you would suffer -40% yields.

If you're instead at -5 with the new system, that would make you by your calculations at -20, which with the new system gives you a less than 20% penalty, while with the old system at -20 happiness you would suffer a 40% penalty.

Well not gonna lie, I'm pretty bummed about the plantations removing forest/jungles. Everything else looks good though.

Unless there's an option to turn it on/off in a file like some of the others things though. I do that with seeing Barbarian camps and wonder cost increase personally.

It is added because of balance-issues, there is just a way too big powerdifference between jungle-plantations and plains plantations that you yield-balance ended up suffering for it.

 

[Strigvir]

You're being completely unreasonable. By your calculations the happiness count should start at positive 15, meaning if you drop down to -10 unhappiness you're by your calculations at -25 with the old system, and you're suffering less than(because math) -25% yields. while with the old system at -25 happiness you would suffer -40% yields.

Anything less than +15 happiness is a -1% penalty per point.
-10 happiness means -25% effective penalty (in old system -20%)
-5 happiness means -20% effective penalty (in old system -10%)
-1 happiness means -16% effective penalty (in old system -2%)
-30 happiness is -45% penalty (old system caps at -40% at -20)

So it's basically BNW penalty for going wide, except trying to show less red numbers.

 

[Funak]

Anything less than +15 happiness is a -1% penalty per point.
-10 happiness means -25% effective penalty (in old system -20%)
-5 happiness means -20% effective penalty (in old system -10%)
-1 happiness means -16% effective penalty (in old system -2%)
-30 happiness is -45% penalty (old system caps at -40% at -20)

So it's basically BNW penalty for going wide, except trying to show less red numbers.

You're completely crazy for assuming that staying at +15 happiness the entire-game is easy even if you don't go wide. And again your math doesn't add up, but whatever I'll drop this now before it goes over into flame.

 

[Gazebo]

Anything less than +15 happiness is a -1% penalty per point.
-10 happiness means -25% effective penalty (in old system -20%)
-5 happiness means -20% effective penalty (in old system -10%)
-1 happiness means -16% effective penalty (in old system -2%)
-30 happiness is -45% penalty (old system caps at -40% at -20)

So it's basically BNW penalty for going wide, except trying to show less red numbers.

I don't think it is quite so simple as that. 0 is the baseline, not +15. Generally speaking, players do not go above +15 for terribly long unless they have a small empire.

G

 

[Crimson13]

@Funak

Nah, I understand the reasoning. Doesn't mean I like it though.