New Version - October 9th (10/9)

[pineappledan]

Eh anarchy system has been reused and so on and so on. If I were to incorporate radical bad events it would probably be anti-snowball events. (First researcher on the Medieval Era can trigger a global science penalty on universities, meanwhile those that are catching up can't feel the effect and probably feel the effect too late when it begins to expire lol).

Lol, physics is researched, recipient of longest land-based trade route has the black death appear in the trade route destination, loses 1/3 of the population for that city over 3 turns

first international trade route to different continent has chance of spreading syphilis to original city. anyone with open borders with that civ can also get the event

adding a reformation belief has a 10% chance of throwing a city into revolt and turning it into a polygamist sex cult that rejects baby baptism

 

[Blue Ghost]

Theorycrafting about puppeting vs. annexing can be useful, but really we need some hard empirical data. How has puppeting vs. annexing worked out in AI games?

 

[ElliotS]

Theorycrafting about puppeting vs. annexing can be useful, but really we need some hard empirical data. How has puppeting vs. annexing worked out in AI games?

I'm not sure how the AI's policy and science discount would affect the equation. I'm not going to bother with the math, but I'm not sure if the AI's getting a discount on stuff can make this a human-only problem. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Gazebo]

Theorycrafting about puppeting vs. annexing can be useful, but really we need some hard empirical data. How has puppeting vs. annexing worked out in AI games?

Generally-speaking, the wider an AI can go, the better. Not always, though! Most science victories happen with smaller civs.

The biggest thing to note about the tall-wide dichotomy is that the zero-sum game rule is in effect. In many instances, going wide isn't about cities paying for themselves, but rather denying the city to your opponent. That's a big factor in the balance overall, but puppeting v annexing is a concern.

In any case I'm going to drop culture/tech scaling by around 3-4% and increase policy/tech costs a bit. Make it all more expensive for everyone, but less painful for wide civs. We'll see.

G

 

[Dawnpromise]

Eh anarchy system has been reused and so on and so on. If I were to incorporate radical bad events it would probably be anti-snowball events. (First researcher on the Medieval Era can trigger a global science penalty on universities, meanwhile those that are catching up can't feel the effect and probably feel the effect too late when it begins to expire lol).

The idea sounds interesting, but I'd have to insist the player be given some choice in how they react to such events. Example, for your university event you could be given the choice of things like having the universities give some paltry amount of faith during the event as a result of religious issue, defund the universities granting additional gold, or have the universities all create negative happiness due to political dissent.

Bad events are interesting when you're given a choice how to react to them. Simply being told "there was a flood, farms are ruined" is frustrating. Being told "There's a flood. Do you want to sacrifce production to save the farms or let them drown?" is an interesting decision even if both options are bad.

Lol, physics is researched, recipient of longest land-based trade route has the black death appear in the trade route destination, loses 1/3 of the population for that city over 3 turns

Hrm, actually I think the best way to manifest the Black Death in-game would be to inflict a massive food penalty on all afflicted cities (like -100 food or some high number a city cannot manage by that point in the game), then have it spread by trade routes and city connections. Or maybe such an event would better represent a potato famine?

 

[HalfEmptyMug]

@Gazebo, off-topic, but did you look into some of the issues with Great Work Thieving? It's related to their text key error, which I was still receiving in version 9/27, and posted some additional info on GitHub: https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/3530. It was marked "closed" so you might have missed it.

 

[BazaarJack]

Japan is actually really good. If anything they're closer to OP right now. The combination of getting Faith and culture early, and tons of culture and science with Dojo is insane. Those are the best yields, and japan gets them at great timing. Add in the host of other goodies and they're just really awesome.

I thought so too, but in the one game I played with them at Emperor (which is admittedly a small sample size) I didn't find that to be the case. Have you played them recently or is your opinion just based on the changes as you see them. I can try another game with them, maybe it was just circumstantial - I did get penned in early and stuck with only 3 cities.

 

[pineappledan]

Hrm, actually I think the best way to manifest the Black Death in-game would be to inflict a massive food penalty on all afflicted cities (like -100 food or some high number a city cannot manage by that point in the game), then have it spread by trade routes and city connections. Or maybe such an event would better represent a potato famine?

This is beginning to sound like what I envisioned for as a disease mechanic when we were all dreaming up Civ VI wishlists. a disease system would need to be its own full mechanic in order to make proper use of trade routes, etc.

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo, off-topic, but did you look into some of the issues with Great Work Thieving? It's related to their text key error, which I was still receiving in version 9/27, and posted some additional info on GitHub: https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/3530. It was marked "closed" so you might have missed it.

Hmm, nope. Someone posted in a closed thread, that's a no-no. I'll look, thanks for alerting me.

G

 

[Dawnpromise]

This is beginning to sound like what I envisioned for as a disease mechanic when we were all dreaming up Civ VI wishlists. a disease system would need to be its own full mechanic in order to make proper use of trade routes, etc.

I'm not so much interested in disease mechanic so much as simply theorizing ways to use the events system to simulate the great calamities of human history. It's just that disease and famine tend to be the most common ones I can think of that aren't military related.

 

[BazaarJack]

Sweden is really fun if you like to conquer. You can go since the very beginning with some spearsman dealing more damage. Add some fast catapults and you are ready to expand aggressively in Classical. But unless other civs that spike only in that era, Sweden gets better and better. Have your Great General and your melee units, swordsmen for example, fight at +45% CS. That's huge. You can take cities barehands with that. Oh, you need iron, by the way. Now, when most civs are exhausted by their conquests, Sweden receives the Carolean, amazing unit when attached to a GG, giving +60%CS, and the March promotion (heal every turn). This unit does extra damage to enemies adjacent to your recent kills. You probably won't be finishing many enemies with your Caroleans (that's cavalry work), but if you take Authority (melee heals on kills), there is synergy. I'd say Sweden is unmatched in land combat. At least that was two versions ago. Now it seems that some combat bonus has been replaced by an XP bonus, and maybe March is gone.

Persia is ... interesting. It's a golden age warmonger civilization. The Immortals comes pretty soon and they defend pretty well, but lacks a bit punch when fighting, best to be used as tanks, backed by ranged and siege. You can do some early conquests with that. Then comes the Satrap building and the fun begins. Golden Ages come faster and stay longer, something you can abuse with your religion. And most importantly, extra movement. Think that +1 movement is little? Think twice. Your melee, ranged and siege units can move 2 tiles per turn in rough terrain, while most other civs move 1 tile per turn. That's doubling your enemy's. Given you have room to maneuver, you can outsmart any army. Only drawback is that you need to time your fighting. Now, Persia's been given some reason to focus on gold.

I don't have experience with Russia lately.

Thanks Tu_79, do the immortals keep the healing/armor plating on upgrade? And do you think Persia is viable on the harder difficulties? Some may say all civs are viable which is perhaps academically true, but I think some shine a little brighter than others under particular circumstances...

 

[Enginseer]

The idea sounds interesting, but I'd have to insist the player be given some choice in how they react to such events. Example, for your university event you could be given the choice of things like having the universities give some paltry amount of faith during the event as a result of religious issue, defund the universities granting additional gold, or have the universities all create negative happiness due to political dissent.

Bad events are interesting when you're given a choice how to react to them. Simply being told "there was a flood, farms are ruined" is frustrating. Being told "There's a flood. Do you want to sacrifce production to save the farms or let them drown?" is an interesting decision even if both options are bad.



Hrm, actually I think the best way to manifest the Black Death in-game would be to inflict a massive food penalty on all afflicted cities (like -100 food or some high number a city cannot manage by that point in the game), then have it spread by trade routes and city connections. Or maybe such an event would better represent a potato famine?

Or maybe just -25% Food and -10 Food from City Connections can represent overall black death.

 

[Dawnpromise]

Or maybe just -25% Food and -10 Food from City Connections can represent overall black death.

That sounds about right. The -food from connections is particularly accurate as the main defense against the plague was isolation. Next it'd just be a matter of setting the duration and what player responses are available. Some ideas:

Pray to the gods for mercy! (requires Religion) grants +faith in all cities for duration.
Quarantine all cities from the plague! Suffer -gold in all cities but removes the -food from city connections.
Study the disease in search of a cure. Increase science from Universities but increase building maintenance for duration.
Do nothing (Just let it happen)

 

[CrazyG]

Civ is too complex to really try and model the optimal number of cities. The math I read isn't wrong, but its not a realistic assesment. Mathematically if you assume all cities are equal, more cities always makes sense, any city will produce more than it pulls from the other cities, but its a cleary false example. I think its better to follow the judgement of experience players, and there seems to be some agreement there.

Another factor would be AI games, however humans and AI are playing slightly different games, especially on higher difficulties. For example, the bigger AI tends to win wars against other AI, while humans are often able to win (or at least stalemate) regardless of their size. Extremely small empires can struggle, but even then if you get the right wonders and play smart you can make it happen. This is also a chicken and egg situation, an aI that is succeeding already can probably expand more. On higher difficutlies the AI tends to build everything pretty quickly, so their newer cities pay off faster than human cities do. This makes those late game island cities much more reasonable for the AI, rather than human players.

The only situation I don't puppet is when I need to purchase something in that city. I suppose for a fairUsually that either means a holy city for missionaries, or a city far away from my other cities to buy military units in. Keeping those culture and science costs low is a really big deal. I suspect puppeting is the better call for the AI most of the time, but a bigger AI might win regardless of mistakenly annexing. But maybe annexing does make sense for Deity AI, its possible he can develop the city fast enough

 

[ElliotS]

In any case I'm going to drop culture/tech scaling by around 3-4% and increase policy/tech costs a bit. Make it all more expensive for everyone, but less painful for wide civs. We'll see.

I would recommend finding a cost that works and making it standard across map sizes. Wide v Tall is already made more wide favored when a map gets bigger, so also decreasing costs on larger maps is a bad idea. I feel like this hasn't really been questioned before, but the cost increase reduction on larger maps is a really bad design choice by Firaxis that we shouldn't let affect us.

 

[Ziad]

I would recommend finding a cost that works and making it standard across map sizes. Wide v Tall is already made more wide favored when a map gets bigger, so also decreasing costs on larger maps is a bad idea. I feel like this hasn't really been questioned before, but the cost increase reduction on larger maps is a really bad design choice by Firaxis that we shouldn't let affect us.

He's increasing base costs so that would demand a corresponding decrease in scaling irrespective of map size. Otherwise you'd break bigger maps.

Also I don't get the argument about tall being disfavored on larger maps. You are more likely to get valuable cities since you don't need to expand as quickly, and you have more cities to puppet. You also can get "wider" since you're less punished for additional cities.

I honestly sometimes find there is too much space in bigger maps to continuously expand haphazardly. If you don't reduce scaling costs properly, it may be an unintentional nerf to the AI which tend to overexpand.

I agree that the situation is awkward.

 

[Owlbebach]

Mathematically if you assume all cities are equal, more cities always makes sense, any city will produce more than it pulls from the other cities, but its a cleary false example

I also thought like this before, but in fact it is not! Its not obvious, but (lets take an extreme example) having 1 capital + 30 puppets is BETTER that having 1 capital + 10 non-puppets + 30 puppets.
Also i have to admit "all cities are equal" was a bad wording. Better to say "average cities" (though it does not change the formula)

In fact yesterday we were thinking about that and my friend derived the formula that can be used to understand whether it is better to puppet or to annex. Here it is:

A = base cost of tech
P = increase of cost for every non-puppet city (10%=0,1)
n = number of you non-puppet cities, not including capital (i.e. if you have 1 capital + 4 non-puppet cities than n=4)
T = total science/culture per turn (without the city that you want to annex)
c = science/culture produced by the city you want to annex

If we simplify this inequality the formula will look like this:

If this inequality is true than it is better to annex, otherwise better to puppet. I encourage everyone to test it in your real games, it does work.

 

[CrazyG]

I know I'm not the first person to point this out. The 2,000 gold event that happens in medieval era is ridiculous. I don't think this one even needs a discussion, its clearly way too much gold

I also thought like this before, but in fact it is not! Its not obvious, but (lets take an extreme example) having 1 capital + 30 puppets is BETTER that having 1 capital + 10 non-puppets + 30 puppets.
Also i have to admit "all cities are equal" was a bad wording. Better to say "average cities" (though it does not change the formula)

In fact yesterday we were thinking about that and my friend derived the formula that can be used to understand whether it is better to puppet or to annex. Here it is:
View attachment 478658
A = base cost of tech
P = increase of cost for every non-puppet city (10%=0,1)
n = number of you non-puppet cities, not including capital (i.e. if you have 1 capital + 4 non-puppet cities than n=4)
T = total science/culture per turn (without the city that you want to annex)
c = science/culture produced by the city you want to annex

If we simplify this inequality the formula will look like this:
View attachment 478659

If this inequality is true than it is better to annex, otherwise better to puppet. I encourage everyone to test it in your real games, it does work.

I just said more cities is better. As for puppet vs annex, its almost always puppet for bigger empires I think. Basically it will come down to something like -3% culture/science in all other cities, or -40% in this city. Its a pretty clear option in my opinion, that conquered city will be your crappiest city. When consider other effects that don't scale with city number (like these uber culture trade routes) it gets even more obvious not to annex, unless you really want to purchase units in that city

 

[Owlbebach]

I know I'm not the first person to point this out. The 2,000 gold event that happens in medieval era is ridiculous. I don't think this one even needs a discussion, its clearly way too much gold

I just said more cities is better. As for puppet vs annex, its almost always puppet for bigger empires I think. Basically it will come down to something like -3% culture/science in all other cities, or -40% in this city. Its a pretty clear option in my opinion, that conquered city will be your crappiest city. When consider other effects that don't scale with city number (like these uber culture trade routes) it gets even more obvious not to annex, unless you really want to purchase units in that city

Actually if we assume that empire-wide yields (like trade routes, religion, etc) are equal to 3 average cities (which i think is a viable assumption) than the most optimal amount of non-puppet cities will be one;D

 

[CrazyG]

Actually if we assume that empire-wide yields (like trade routes, religion, etc) are equal to 3 average cities (which i think is a viable assumption) than the most optimal amount of non-puppet cities will be one;D

Its not that high (otherwise OCC would be a solid strategy)
I've actually finished a game where I only built one settler. If you can get the enemy to forward settle you its awesome. Plus on high difficulties captured AI cities will already have extra tiles, a building or two and a bigger population