Yeah I am thinking that may be the best way. You may still need a few if you are short on plantations or camps or precious metals to keep up with income costs or prosperity requirements, but their best asset is the policy flexibility later on. We could have, faith from a belief, and gold, culture, and science from policies and maybe GA points or production from ideologies. I would not add food or tourism to them.
Next step tile balance and general economy
- Thread starter mystikx21
- Start date
Agreed I think we leave them as they are for now, and then once we get to policies we sprinkle a few bonuses here and there to allow specialization (which, I believe, makes 'villages as extensions of your civ's culture' make more thematic sense anyways).
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Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Agreed. I think moving them a tech earlier and giving them a gold bonus at their current place would make them less... useless. I find the freshwater bonus weird, too, though.
We can then worry about the "kicker" (whether hammer, culture, golden age or faith) later when we do something about policies. By then we'll probably get a better idea of how much "space" there is for bonuses. I also think we should keep the "not adjacent to another one" mechanic from the château in mind. That can be used to limit the number of villages you build, allowing us to reduce the impact of extra yields and encourages not going overboard with them.
We can then worry about the "kicker" (whether hammer, culture, golden age or faith) later when we do something about policies. By then we'll probably get a better idea of how much "space" there is for bonuses. I also think we should keep the "not adjacent to another one" mechanic from the château in mind. That can be used to limit the number of villages you build, allowing us to reduce the impact of extra yields and encourages not going overboard with them.
The chateau effect of limiting their development I would rather avoid.
Say they have a max of +3 gold (with commerce), +.5-1 faith (belief), +1 or .5 culture or some culture effect, +1 science, and +.5-1 GA point, then yes they are extremely powerful, but you would have to sink a belief and use at least 3 different trees and an ideology and a tech to do that and they'd not be very useful until then. Seems like a lot of cost for what would be a later game effect. But I'd rather it be fewer of those yes.
Gold and science are by default (leave them as is), and we can add maybe 1 or 2 others to policies or ideologies and they would be fine.
Say they have a max of +3 gold (with commerce), +.5-1 faith (belief), +1 or .5 culture or some culture effect, +1 science, and +.5-1 GA point, then yes they are extremely powerful, but you would have to sink a belief and use at least 3 different trees and an ideology and a tech to do that and they'd not be very useful until then. Seems like a lot of cost for what would be a later game effect. But I'd rather it be fewer of those yes.
Gold and science are by default (leave them as is), and we can add maybe 1 or 2 others to policies or ideologies and they would be fine.
So is the suggestion to move villages earlier and just give them a +1 gold straight up...or to move them up but leave them alone otherwise?
I can say the later one only makes an impact if village bonuses from policies were very early in the trees.
Mystikx you gave me an idea with gold that I wanted to throw out there. What if there was a way to negate unhappiness through gold buying. For example, a building that could only be bought that provided happy?
Didn't we consider the idea of a bought only building before? I think we found it couldn't be done though?
I can say the later one only makes an impact if village bonuses from policies were very early in the trees.
Mystikx you gave me an idea with gold that I wanted to throw out there. What if there was a way to negate unhappiness through gold buying. For example, a building that could only be bought that provided happy?
Didn't we consider the idea of a bought only building before? I think we found it couldn't be done though?
Move them up, "leave them alone". Then a normal tech bonus.
The village bonuses should be on one of the first tier picks for policies. They would be niche improvements to top off a weak gold city instead of plantations or camps or gold mines until about the mid game then you may start proliferating them by taking other effects.
The village bonuses should be on one of the first tier picks for policies. They would be niche improvements to top off a weak gold city instead of plantations or camps or gold mines until about the mid game then you may start proliferating them by taking other effects.
I could get behind this. Farms and Mines are roughly balanced...villages are the x factor improvement that goes the way your gameplay dictates. Creates a powerful use for culture in the early stages of the game. I like it.
It is in the current DLL (bought-only building code), courtesy whoward. Speaking of which, anybody seen whoward lately?
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Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Great discussion here, I love the general direction where this is going! 
I haven't played for months and currrently play a mostly unmodded game to get a feeling for vanilla again (I started using Thal's mods only weeks after the 1.0 release and rarely came back to the unmodded game).
In comparison, the unmodded game seems sluggish. It takes ages for any new city to develop. For dozens of turns, any new city is mostly concerned about itself, building up basic infrastructure like monuments or granaries. If I want to have a specialized city for e.g. unit production, I have to wait for 2 eras until it has the needed infrastructure like a barracks and some production-boosters.
It feels like there are so many buildings I won't ever build (at least not in the era they thematically belong), so there's the feeling I'm missing a lot of content here.
IMHO, CEP's easier rush-buying helped immensely to get other cities than the capital up and running in reasonable time, which was fun.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that too much production results in all cities getting every building and specialization is pointless again. But that wasn't the case in CEP. It rather found a solid middle-ground, whille the unmodded game feels production-starved.
In other words, the amount/density of choices the player has to make were much higher in CEP. You didn't hit the "next turn" button as often without making any meaningful choices during the turn. "Choices are fun" always was one of Thal's main philosophies.
The lower gold purchase modifier allowed to react quickly to several situations. Whether you want to settle an newly found fertile island quickly, start a quick offensive after you spotted a weak spot in your rivals defenses, or wanted to quickly react against hostile actions from other civs, you could do so.
Mind that this didn't mean you could do everything at once! It only meant that IF you had stockpiled some money, you had some power to react quickly to new situations. Once you spent it, it was gone. But if you had a full treasury, it meant awesome choices, which were nevertheless hard to make.
Another field where I feel the unmodded game offers to few choices is tile improvements. We rarely have a meaningful choice what to build, there's always an optimal solution. CEP wasn't as much "autoplay", mainly due to multiple improvements being boosted by freshwater instead of only farms.
Speaking of this, why do you find a gold boost from freshwater for villages weird? What about riverside trade?
I haven't played for months and currrently play a mostly unmodded game to get a feeling for vanilla again (I started using Thal's mods only weeks after the 1.0 release and rarely came back to the unmodded game).
In comparison, the unmodded game seems sluggish. It takes ages for any new city to develop. For dozens of turns, any new city is mostly concerned about itself, building up basic infrastructure like monuments or granaries. If I want to have a specialized city for e.g. unit production, I have to wait for 2 eras until it has the needed infrastructure like a barracks and some production-boosters.
It feels like there are so many buildings I won't ever build (at least not in the era they thematically belong), so there's the feeling I'm missing a lot of content here.
IMHO, CEP's easier rush-buying helped immensely to get other cities than the capital up and running in reasonable time, which was fun.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that too much production results in all cities getting every building and specialization is pointless again. But that wasn't the case in CEP. It rather found a solid middle-ground, whille the unmodded game feels production-starved.
In other words, the amount/density of choices the player has to make were much higher in CEP. You didn't hit the "next turn" button as often without making any meaningful choices during the turn. "Choices are fun" always was one of Thal's main philosophies.
The lower gold purchase modifier allowed to react quickly to several situations. Whether you want to settle an newly found fertile island quickly, start a quick offensive after you spotted a weak spot in your rivals defenses, or wanted to quickly react against hostile actions from other civs, you could do so.
Mind that this didn't mean you could do everything at once! It only meant that IF you had stockpiled some money, you had some power to react quickly to new situations. Once you spent it, it was gone. But if you had a full treasury, it meant awesome choices, which were nevertheless hard to make.
Another field where I feel the unmodded game offers to few choices is tile improvements. We rarely have a meaningful choice what to build, there's always an optimal solution. CEP wasn't as much "autoplay", mainly due to multiple improvements being boosted by freshwater instead of only farms.
Speaking of this, why do you find a gold boost from freshwater for villages weird? What about riverside trade?
^ Trade posts. Trade posts was a strange name. Towns and villages in the outlying regions of a city is more realistic as a title and has roughly the same economic effects anyway.
Riverside trade can be from the trade route modifier or be reflected in boosts for the other improvements that way. I don't disagree that a riverside town would have benefited, but it's hard to balance in game play terms.
I think it's more two things
1) There's a lot of gold floating around in the game and it will be hard to make a village good enough with just gold to make it worth building over a farm (or a mine) on a riverside tile without adding more gold.
2) Villages already have more policy options improving them, so we can build on that to make them more flexible. That strikes me as their main attribute anyway is they are gold+ some other stuff but that this stuff would be customizable via policies (rather than GEM's use of science on the tile itself).
Riverside trade can be from the trade route modifier or be reflected in boosts for the other improvements that way. I don't disagree that a riverside town would have benefited, but it's hard to balance in game play terms.
I think it's more two things
1) There's a lot of gold floating around in the game and it will be hard to make a village good enough with just gold to make it worth building over a farm (or a mine) on a riverside tile without adding more gold.
2) Villages already have more policy options improving them, so we can build on that to make them more flexible. That strikes me as their main attribute anyway is they are gold+ some other stuff but that this stuff would be customizable via policies (rather than GEM's use of science on the tile itself).
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
@ Lukeroge: "Trading posts" 
The name and graphics especially back in 1.0 were so annoying to me, I almost blocked out it's still the official name
@Mystik:
I only fear to create a ruleset where it's "wrong" to placevillages trading posts next to rivers, given that you "lose" potential yields from improvements that do benefit.
Still, this merely a reminder. I trust you know more about balance than most people given your innumerable great contributions to CEP.
On a related note, I do like the idea of villages as wildcard. Might be tough to find the right balance regarding the polcies that unlock the bonuses. If they are very accessible, everyone powerplaying will just unlock all upgrades then spam trading posts. If they are hidden deep within policy trees, they might be too situational.
Also, yield bonuses on trading posts always benefit a wide economy (more space to spam them). Will we have 3 or 4 trees where a wide bonus would be viable/fitting? And should we rather distribute the bonuses over various wide trees throughout the eras (e.g. Freedom, Exploration, Order)? Or is it better to have them all unlock around the same time? Only the latter option would allow them to be a true wildcard.
The name and graphics especially back in 1.0 were so annoying to me, I almost blocked out it's still the official name
@Mystik:
I only fear to create a ruleset where it's "wrong" to place
Still, this merely a reminder. I trust you know more about balance than most people given your innumerable great contributions to CEP.
On a related note, I do like the idea of villages as wildcard. Might be tough to find the right balance regarding the polcies that unlock the bonuses. If they are very accessible, everyone powerplaying will just unlock all upgrades then spam trading posts. If they are hidden deep within policy trees, they might be too situational.
Also, yield bonuses on trading posts always benefit a wide economy (more space to spam them). Will we have 3 or 4 trees where a wide bonus would be viable/fitting? And should we rather distribute the bonuses over various wide trees throughout the eras (e.g. Freedom, Exploration, Order)? Or is it better to have them all unlock around the same time? Only the latter option would allow them to be a true wildcard.
I would want to put them in trees roughly at a point to make them equivalent.
For example, I could see +Faith to villages be 2-3 steps down in Piety. Aethetics +1 culture maybe 2 steps as with commerice +1 gold. But rationalism (which comes later) could be +1 science off the top.
That's just my high level thought, it would have to be managed by the impact of the yield as well.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Sounds worth a try!
I think that is a worry on the village-river question. One way around that is simply that there are more happiness interactions with growth and gold, so occasionally it may make more sense to park a village somewhere even sacrificing some production or food.
That choice would also emerge organically later in the game, as villages become more flexible/useful from policies and as the farms and mines are more standard bonuses instead of better on rivers. I think it should be fine.
That choice would also emerge organically later in the game, as villages become more flexible/useful from policies and as the farms and mines are more standard bonuses instead of better on rivers. I think it should be fine.
Wodhann
South American Norse God
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2014
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- 1,507
Does anyone else here think Marble should be made a bonus resource? I never seen much sense in it being a luxury resource AND giving bonus to building early wonders. Also I think Stone should give you the same bonus. Like in civ4.
Also guys, don't forget to nerf Salt.
PS: Mystic, you really should try harder on your thread titles... They're the laziest I've ever seen lol
Also guys, don't forget to nerf Salt.
PS: Mystic, you really should try harder on your thread titles... They're the laziest I've ever seen lol
Agreed. I'd actually be inclined to see it staggered as follows: stone in Ancient and Medieval, marble in Classical and Renaissance.
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But I love salt!
As for stone and marble...is stone more common than marble in the base map script?
ExpiredReign
Deity
But I love salt!
As for stone and marble...is stone more common than marble in the base map script?
Well each map script may handle things slightly different but as a general rule of thumb, yes stone would be more plentiful than marble.
Bonus resources and Luxury resources are handled by two separate functions IIRC.
Usually Bonus and Strategics get assigned first and then Luxuries, with emphasis on the former resources so as to not have Luxuries littering the terrain.
Wodhann
South American Norse God
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,507
Everybody loves salt, that's why it needs a nerf. Whoever starts with it gets a significant early game advantage.But I love salt!
