New Version - May 19th (5-19)

[Txurce]

So one consequence of the "Can't make specialists unless happy change"....it really cripples food heavy cities.

Food heavy cities (heavy food, lite production) already suffers a lot of penalties in terms of infrastructure...and therefore has a lot of happiness problems. But historically they made decent guild cities and specialist mechas. No longer....in fact they are often the cities I can never put any specialists in because they don't have the happiness to keep up.

Its a big strike against the new mechanic to me, I think food heavy cities should have some viability. I already feel that hammers factor too much in my city placement decision making, and its now gotten worse with the latest change.

There's nothing wrong with food-heavy cities being somewhat devalued. An easy fix, which you mentioned, is adjusting city placement. That's just part of the game. So is controlling pop, as Bite can tell you with much unhappiness. Food heavy cities can also be helped by ITR's. And bottom line, you aren't entitled yo have specialists in every city — you're just used to it. So was I, but I'm enjoying the new limitations.

 

[Stalker0]

There's nothing wrong with food-heavy cities being somewhat devalued. An easy fix, which you mentioned, is adjusting city placement. That's just part of the game. So is controlling pop, as Bite can tell you with much unhappiness. And bottom line, you aren't entitled yo have specialists in every city — you're just used to it.

I would argue that food heavy cities have already received continuous nerfs throughout the lifetime of the mod, to the point where we continue to debate if food is even strong enough as a yield. There is a difference between "This food heavy city won't be the strongest" and "this food heavy city isn't viable". I already consider hammers the number 1 importance of a city placement when possible, and this just pushes that line further and further.

As to being entitled to specialists, on this I agree. I just keep going back to the notion that I am already paying for specialists with food. So the idea that the city where I have chosen food as primary yield....but can't make specialists....to be a weird disconnect.

 

[Txurce]

I would argue that food heavy cities have already received continuous nerfs throughout the lifetime of the mod, to the point where we continue to debate if food is even strong enough as a yield. There is a difference between "This food heavy city won't be the strongest" and "this food heavy city isn't viable". I already consider hammers the number 1 importance of a city placement when possible, and this just pushes that line further and further.

As to being entitled to specialists, on this I agree. I just keep going back to the notion that I am already paying for specialists with food. So the idea that the city where I have chosen food as primary yield....but can't make specialists....to be a weird disconnect.

Putting it on my subjective scale, the simplicity of no specialists if unhappy outweighs crimps on food-heavy cities.

That said, I agree that not being able to make specialists in some food-heavy cities is a weird disconnect. But I don't see choosing a city site based on hammers any more problematic than choosing it based on luxuries. Again, this is a logical argument based on subjective opinion, so I get why you probably don't agree. I'm just surprised I disagree with you on something!

 

[Stalker0]

I'm just surprised I disagree with you on something!

That just means we finally get to have a good debate! Muhahah!

Putting it on my subjective scale, the simplicity of no specialists if unhappy outweighs crimps on food-heavy cities.

Your not wrong when we put it in context of "we HAVE to have an unhappiness mechanic for specialist".

But I am still not convinced that is the case. G tried out this mechanic as a way to keep urbanization but in a smoother format. I am all for trying that out, but I don't want to use momentum as our rationale. Urbanization is still new, and it doesn't have to remain. Now my argument is not enough to say "toss urbanization!"....but I would say it is a strike against it, and combined with other arguments may be enough to consider changes.

 

[Gazebo]

I’ve considered going back to a flat, no-era-scale food cost for specialists, since that was largely a way to control specialist volume. The new method is much better for that.

G

 

[Gazebo]

I really like urbanization and the new specialist limitations. I think, if anything, I’d prefer to see specialists get a modest buff in yield potency to compensate for the new costs.

G

 

[Stalker0]

I really like urbanization and the new specialist limitations. I think, if anything, I’d prefer to see specialists get a modest buff in yield potency to compensate for the new costs. G

Part of my issue is that it feels like circular logic to rationalize the system.

The conversation started with "Tall is too strong due to current specialists". So they need a greater "cost" and hence urbanization. Ok makes sense. So then we put in Urbanization. Except that urbanization doesn't really effect Tall that much, it affects Wide much more strongly because Tall has no happiness problems. So Tall still makes all of their specialists, and Wide makes fewer...a lot fewer in fact if their cities are unhappy.

So now because of these new costs, we want to make specialists.....even stronger?


Fundamentally if we want to limit specialists....than just remove specialist slots from buildings. We used to have fewer slots, but over time more and more buildings have introduced slots. If that many specialists are too many that's fine, just drop the slots. Boom, simple and easy....no fuss no muss. And of course if later in the game we still want the pile of specialists, than give some of the late game buildings 2 slots instead to 1 to compensate.

This comes down to my concern that the happiness system keeps worming its way into every aspect of the game, and I think to the game's detriment. Happy forces infrastructure development and curbs expansion....that's enough. That's all it needs to do, it doesn't have to be some universal mechanic that applies to everything. I think there are simpler ways to curb other issues in the system than to keep throwing the happy system at it.​

 

[Rekk]

The conversation started with "Tall is too strong due to current specialists". So they need a greater "cost" and hence urbanization. Ok makes sense. So then we put in Urbanization. Except that urbanization doesn't really effect Tall that much, it affects Wide much more strongly because Tall has no happiness problems. So Tall still makes all of their specialists, and Wide makes fewer...a lot fewer in fact if their cities are unhappy.

Is your current issue food-heavy wide cities, since food-heavy tall cities don't have happiness issues?

 

[Bhawb]

The conversation started with "Tall is too strong due to current specialists". So they need a greater "cost" and hence urbanization. Ok makes sense. So then we put in Urbanization. Except that urbanization doesn't really effect Tall that much, it affects Wide much more strongly because Tall has no happiness problems. So Tall still makes all of their specialists, and Wide makes fewer...a lot fewer in fact if their cities are unhappy.

Part of the conversation has also been Wide's access to specialists and how it was often too easy for Wide to still work a ton of specialists.

 

[Gazebo]

Part of the conversation has also been Wide's access to specialists and how it was often too easy for Wide to still work a ton of specialists.

This is accurate, Stalker’s point is just one part of the puzzle.

G

 

[amateurgamer88]

With specialists capped by happiness, I'm curious about one thing. If I manually pick my specialists in all my cities and, due to growth or WW, I got more unhappiness, will some of my specialists be forced to work a tile or as a laborer? If so, then I will have to do my specialists every time a war ends or check often to make sure they work the right specialist slots?

 

[Gazebo]

With specialists capped by happiness, I'm curious about one thing. If I manually pick my specialists in all my cities and, due to growth or WW, I got more unhappiness, will some of my specialists be forced to work a tile or as a laborer? If so, then I will have to do my specialists every time a war ends or check often to make sure they work the right specialist slots?

The system will remove the 'worst' specialist and hurl it onto the best empty tile (or leave it as a laborer if there is no empty tile for it). This check happens at the end of every turn.

G

 

[amateurgamer88]

The system will remove the 'worst' specialist and hurl it onto the best empty tile (or leave it as a laborer if there is no empty tile for it). This check happens at the end of every turn.

G

As a result, the specialist won't return since the specialist slots are selected "manually?" Thanks!

 

[Stalker0]

Is your current issue food-heavy wide cities, since food-heavy tall cities don't have happiness issues?

Food Heavy Tall cities don't exist for me. When I'm playing Tall I have to be very selective with my city sites, so every site must have good access to production, or its a non-starter.

 

[CrazyG]

I would argue that food heavy cities have already received continuous nerfs throughout the lifetime of the mod, to the point where we continue to debate if food is even strong enough as a yield

I've felt food is weak for a long time, and I really enjoy seeing someone else share this thought. Even if happiness is plentiful, working a mine seems much better than working a farm to me. Production is so strong in this mod, I can do just fine on tundra but land without production is so hard to play.

On a related note, I think Fealty is somewhat weak currently. I just can't take it when I go wide due to happiness, unless I lock growth, in which case I'm throwing a lot yields away.

 

[Gazebo]

I've felt food is weak for a long time, and I really enjoy seeing someone else share this thought. Even if happiness is plentiful, working a mine seems much better than working a farm to me. Production is so strong in this mod, I can do just fine on tundra but land without production is so hard to play.

On a related note, I think Fealty is somewhat weak currently. I just can't take it when I go wide due to happiness, unless I lock growth, in which case I'm throwing a lot yields away.

One way I've considered addressing this concern (of all 'base' yields, I agree food is at the bottom) is stripping the production element of Distress away and just making it food-dependent. Other than that, however, I think food is still important, as growth is generally always a good thing.

G

 

[CrazyG]

One way I've considered addressing this concern (of all 'base' yields, I agree food is at the bottom) is stripping the production element of Distress away and just making it food-dependent. Other than that, however, I think food is still important, as growth is generally always a good thing.

These specialist and happiness changes kind of challenge "growth is good" as an idea. More production/science/culture is pretty much good 100% of the time. Food is really only good if you have very little of it (or in a tradition capital)

Your population correlates so closely with food production, If I increase my food to alleviate distress, won't I just grow and be unhappy again? Isn't this just a higher variance version of 1 in every X citizens is unhappy? I just don't understand the point of distress at this point.

Progress grows a lot from that 10 food per building, but that 10 food doesn't affect happiness. This is a huge factor for these calculations, it also causes a city you don't manage to overvalue food dramatically and grow more than you would want (I think this is a new player trap BTW)

 

[BiteInTheMark]

If I let my cities automanage everything, my cities look pretty empty in direction of specialists. I think in most cases the AI prefer having 100% happiness than working specialists.
Ive played an old version yesterday with mates before the happiness was changed, and my cities used plenty of specialists. It was really strange.
I agree with Stalker, that food heavy cities are now kinda doomed to stay a happiness drain. Especially island cities have before industrial age only few options to raise their production, working engineers was my preferred way to do it, but it's now kinda impossible. Sending ITR is often not optimal, cause the pure value of ITR is still a joke later on. It would also hit Trade Nations like Morocco or Germany to be forced using ITR for city development. Former specialists were also a good drain for your food surplus, now working only 2 specialists per city opens a lot of food for growth, which can generate more problems than it solves.
I think specialists should treated differently.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

One thing I would consider is completely removing unhappiness from specialists and also the whole free specialists abilities from buildings.
Happiness as payment for specialists isn't working to balance tall vs. wide.
Something that may work is gold. If every Specialist also consumes 1 (2 in renaissance and 3 in atomic) tall could get hit by that more than wide. To compensate this a bit, the base food consumption is reduced back to 2.
@Gazebo I think you can do this change pretty fast. Setting unhappiness from specialists to zero and give them a cost of gold. I would like to see what will happen, if you do then a fast AI run. Could you?

 

[tu_79]

Food is really only good if you have very little of it (or in a tradition capital)

Disagree. More food is useful for using fewer farmers, thus more citizens going to other tiles/slots. It just does not need to translate to more growth.

That said, I support G idea of stripping production from distress. That will make it much easier to understand that production is what controls unhappiness best.