[No Cottage Egalitarian America] The Jeffersonian Democracy

[iOnlySignIn]

Another thing that requires rebalancing is Rivers.

There are many more River tiles in RFC/DoC than in BTS. In BTS Watermills rule, too, but they are limited because River tiles are precious and few. In any case, if you Cottage a River tile instead of Watermill it, it's a waste.

What I suggest is a rebalance of River tile yields that doesn't overwhelmingly favor Watermills.

(1) Windmills start with 1 more . No change to initial Yields of Watermill.

(2) No changes to Replaceable Parts bonus to Windmills and Watermills.

(3) Electricity gives +1 bonus to Windmills and Watermills instead of +2.

(4) New Building: Wharf. Available with Optics. Cost between Harbor and Levee. Requires Coast OR River (like the Dutch Dike).
Effect: +1 from River tiles in this city.

Hopefully this will make Cottaging a River tile worth it.

 

[civ_king]

So CE/Capitalism is to be something exclusive to America?

I am of the opinion that Capitalism was invented in Renaissance Italy, and got really developed and reached its ultimate form in Protestant Europe. America is a late-comer to the party, and not even the best at it IMO.

America IRL also runs a large number of Specialists (Artists, like you; Scientists, like me; Merchants, like Steve Jobs. Seriously we are all Specialists in large cities - we would not exist in this form if America is pure CE) and produced a huge number of GPs. It should be just as effective with Egalitarianism SE.


The current GD means only one thing: AVOID IT. Because the Stability hit is actually sizable and permanent, for the same reason that Golden Ages permanently hurt your Stability.

It is also, IMHO, unforgivably boring.

Religion was only incidental to capitalism, if Mary made it 10 years longer England would have remained firmly Catholic and still would have wound up with industrialisation and industrial capitalism

 

[Sian]

I'm neither reading or understanding what he said as a "it'd only work in where people were protestant, because they were protestant" ... thats somewhat like saying that Communism only worked (given that it did at all) in Russia since there was orthodox people there ...

It was merely a statement that the states in northen europe, who happened to be protestant, was those embracing it

 

[civ_king]

I'm neither reading or understanding what he said as a "it'd only work in where people were protestant, because they were protestant" ... thats somewhat like saying that Communism only worked (given that it did at all) in Russia since there was orthodox people there ...

It was merely a statement that the states in northen europe, who happened to be protestant, was those embracing it

He could have just said Northern Europe like most people...

 

[Leoreth]

What we need are ways to make CE - Capitalism more useful and effective in general, not just for America. We should encourage diverse playstyles. Ideally, Russia should be reasonably effective with Capitalism CE too, just as how America should be effective with Egalitarian SE.

That's true.

Very obvious, and yet very effective fixes for Capitalism:

(1) Instead of +2 to Towns, it should provide +1 to Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages. This will make Cottages worth it. Towns are still better than Villages with Parliamentarism.

Sounds reasonable.

(2) When I hurry buy something, that thing should appear INSTANTLY like with Drafting, not "1 turn after". This will make Capitalism much more effective, when
(2A) Hurrying an army to deal with DOWs. This will allow a Capitalistic civ to truly focus on economy in times of peace.
(2B) Hurrying mass Cultural buildings in conquered cities. This will help Capitalistic civs conquer better. It will not be effective as Egalitarian Artists, but it's a start.
Seriously, the "1 turn after" thing SUCKS GIANT BALLS OF FIRE. I play on Epic and it still annoys me to no end. On Normal it's just intolerable.

Don't know if that's possible, but I'll see.

(3) Hurry cost should be lower for civs with less than monstrous economy (i.e. Trading Company England). I suggest a simple fix of giving a universal -25% Hurry Cost to all civs whose GDP is not world No.1. This will help weaker Capitalistic civs (early America, Netherlands) catch up faster. Additionally, remove or lessen the inherent +100% Hurry Cost for Wonders. Seriously, +50% is bad enough. +100% means I'll just Farm and switch to Engineers.

Good idea.

Other things that need to be fixed are Plague and Great Depression mechanics.

(1) As it is Plague vastly favors SE over CE, because your Cottages take eons longer to recover than the population of a (Farmed and Food-rich) city. This can be changed by allowing Plagues to degrade Cottages only by 1 Level. Currently, a single Plague can reduce a Town back to a Cottage. This is a major reason why CE is useless before Medicine.

I think I can do that by applying the cottage hit only when a city is infected by the plague.

(2) Great Depression needs a complete overhaul. The player should face interesting challenges and choices against a Great Depression, not a flat Stability penalty with no means to combat. As it stands now GDs are simply to be avoided like Plague (pun intended) as there is no way to deal with it.

New GD Mechanics (to replace the stupid flat Stability hit):

(A) Unemployment: -3 Happiness in all cities. 1 Angry Citizen in your 6 Largest cities (counters Parliamentarism).

(B) Policy Disruption: Player's Economic Civic is auto-switched to Self-Sufficiency.

(C) Rampant Inflation: +100% Inflation cost during Great Depression.

(D) Bankruptcies: All your cities loose a random non-Wonder building, similar to the Powerful Hurricane Event. The priority ones are Markets, Banks, Factories, and Industrial Parks. If none of these 4 are present in a city then a random building is lost.

The Rationale is, if your economy is really unbeatable with a gigantic Treasury, you should be able to recover from GD relatively fast:

(A) By turning up the Culture Slider.
(B) Well, no way around this one really.
(C) By using up your Treasury. This is also assuaged by the Federal Reserve Event (have I told you it's my favorite Event?).
(D) By hurry-buying all the buildings you lost.

The overall effect is that your Tech is slowed down for a few turns and your Treasury is emptied. It should only be a real problem if you do nothing or if your economy was poor to begin with.

Interesting choices are always a good idea, and no civ was actually collapsed by Great Depressions so the stability aspect never really made sense to me, but my actual problem with it is how unpredictable and counterintuitive it often is. I often get hit by it even if my economy appears to be in decent shape and balance. Plus, another weakness for Capitalism while Egalitarianism has no equivalent just skews the balance even more (I'm seriously considering to move it to Free Market again, which appears to be the optimal choice in its category at least). I'll keep your suggestions in mind in any case, though.

So CE/Capitalism is to be something exclusive to America?

I am of the opinion that Capitalism was invented in Renaissance Italy, and got really developed and reached its ultimate form in Protestant Europe. America is a late-comer to the party, and not even the best at it IMO.

America IRL also runs a large number of Specialists (Artists, like you; Scientists, like me; Merchants, like Steve Jobs. Seriously we are all Specialists in large cities - we would not exist in this form if America is pure CE) and produced a huge number of GPs. It should be just as effective with Egalitarianism SE.

Sure, RFC has enough food that you'll be running some specialists regardless of CE. And canonically America has at least one specialist from the SoL. But the Middle West notwithstanding, American wealth relies not on farming the countryside, but urban sprawl. And success or not, no country is more associated with capitalism than the US, both in their view on themselves and in their presentation to the outside world.

That doesn't mean I want to shoehorn America into Capitalism, but playing for historical flavor should at least not put them at a noticeable disadvantage.

The current GD means only one thing: AVOID IT. Because the Stability hit is actually sizable and permanent, for the same reason that Golden Ages permanently hurt your Stability.

It is also, IMHO, unforgivably boring.

Can you actually consciously avoid a GD? I've never managed to do that.

 

[civ_king]

So CE/Capitalism is to be something exclusive to America?

I am of the opinion that Capitalism was invented in Renaissance Italy, and got really developed and reached its ultimate form in Protestant Europe. America is a late-comer to the party, and not even the best at it IMO.

America IRL also runs a large number of Specialists (Artists, like you; Scientists, like me; Merchants, like Steve Jobs. Seriously we are all Specialists in large cities - we would not exist in this form if America is pure CE) and produced a huge number of GPs. It should be just as effective with Egalitarianism SE.


The current GD means only one thing: AVOID IT. Because the Stability hit is actually sizable and permanent, for the same reason that Golden Ages permanently hurt your Stability.

It is also, IMHO, unforgivably boring.

If you look at California on the map you can see that even with cottaging it still has more than enough food for running specialists. New York which also produced a lot of GPs has three seafoods so it has spare people (and even if you cottage everything still plenty of food especially with corps).


You appear to have violated
(1) America is to be an agrarian society. Therefore it will build no Cottages. Cottages in captured cities must be replaced with other improvements.
I see a cottage 1SW of NYC, 2S Miami, 1SE1S Yax Mutal

*snip*
Can you actually consciously avoid a GD? I've never managed to do that.

It's really easy actually, don't switch to a civic that can get it.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

He could have just said Northern Europe like most people...

I did not invent this. Max Weber did. In fact, I disagree with him and agree with you, in that religions played little role in the development of Capitalism. But the term "Protestant Europe" is still used as such by economists.

That's true.

Interesting choices are always a good idea, and no civ was actually collapsed by Great Depressions so the stability aspect never really made sense to me, but my actual problem with it is how unpredictable and counterintuitive it often is. I often get hit by it even if my economy appears to be in decent shape and balance. Plus, another weakness for Capitalism while Egalitarianism has no equivalent just skews the balance even more (I'm seriously considering to move it to Free Market again, which appears to be the optimal choice in its category at least). I'll keep your suggestions in mind in any case, though.

Definitely move it to FM. FM as a civic boosts your GDP far more than Capitalism.

That doesn't mean I want to shoehorn America into Capitalism, but playing for historical flavor should at least not put them at a noticeable disadvantage.

Good to hear.

Can you actually consciously avoid a GD? I've never managed to do that.

GD is triggered when your Production is large compared to your Commerce/GDP.

You can keep track of it in the Demographics screen, by comparing your Production/Commerce with other civs (rival average, rival best).

To avoid it, you need to do some stupid things, e.g.

(1) Do NOT build Factories in your Production-weak cities. Instead, rely on hurrying for infrastructure there. This will slow down your Tech.

(2) Run pure Merchants. This will slow down your Tech compared to Scientists, but America in particular needs to run pure Merchants with Capitalism.

(3) Switch to FM asap. No other econ Civic can provide enough Commerce.

(4) Build Market-Grocer-Bank instead of Library-University-Observatory in all your cities. This will further slow down your Tech.

(5) Build Wealth, instead of Research, in your best Production cities. This slows down your Tech even further.

If you do all that you can run Capitalism with State Property and/or Assembly Plants and a reasonable number of Watermills, without ever triggering GD (check out my State Capitalist China Cultural Victory). The price, as I have noted, is that you get slower Tech in every conceivable way.

If you do that with America, you run the risk of loosing Pentagon to others, and cannot even hope to build the Radio Wonders. Or you could disregard that, go Production, and go through GDs.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

If you look at California on the map you can see that even with cottaging it still has more than enough food for running specialists. New York which also produced a lot of GPs has three seafoods so it has spare people (and even if you cottage everything still plenty of food especially with corps).

I thought everyone knows that. But thanks.

You appear to have violated
(1) America is to be an agrarian society. Therefore it will build no Cottages. Cottages in captured cities must be replaced with other improvements.
I see a cottage 1SW of NYC, 2S Miami, 1SE1S Yax Mutal

Those were never Cottages. They were Hamlets/Villages when I captured those cities. Also, you know very well that replacing them would have made zero difference anyway. But thanks again for being astute.

 

[civ_king]

I thought everyone knows that. But thanks.


Those were never Cottages. They were Hamlets/Villages when I captured those cities. Also, you know very well that replacing them would have made zero difference anyway. But thanks again for being astute.

In RL the US did/is running a cottage economy, but there is enough food to run specialists so that's how we managed to get GP anyway.

Ah, okay, you said "must", but whatever.

 

[Jusos2108]

GD is triggered when your Production is large compared to your Commerce/GDP.

You can keep track of it in the Demographics screen, by comparing your Production/Commerce with other civs (rival average, rival best).

To avoid it, you need to do some stupid things, e.g.

(1) Do NOT build Factories in your Production-weak cities. Instead, rely on hurrying for infrastructure there. This will slow down your Tech.

(2) Run pure Merchants. This will slow down your Tech compared to Scientists, but America in particular needs to run pure Merchants with Capitalism.

(3) Switch to FM asap. No other econ Civic can provide enough Commerce.

(4) Build Market-Grocer-Bank instead of Library-University-Observatory in all your cities. This will further slow down your Tech.

(5) Build Wealth, instead of Research, in your best Production cities. This slows down your Tech even further.

(6) Skip all the above and run cottage-economy.

I personally have never suffered from Great Depression (directly) and I usually run more cottage orientated economy.

 

[Fresol]

Can you actually consciously avoid a GD? I've never managed to do that.

Like IOnlySignIn said, having a high GNP/Production ratio would help. I don't know if Crop Yield plays a factor, it should be in the code somewhere right?

 

[iOnlySignIn]

(6) Skip all the above and run cottage-economy.

Did I mention not to build any Cottages in the above? Do I have to mention that you Cottage with Capitalism? Maybe I should also mention that you build buildings in your cities?

Also, good luck with all the Wonders requirements if you Cottage every plain tile.

And I'm sure the prodigious +1 per tile of those Cottages will really help you tech race towards Assembly Line.

I suggest you play a CE America game and find out yourself. See if you'll be able to build all the Wonders and tech past Genetics/Satellites before 1930.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Most of us play on Monarch + Normal though.

Remember that it's still the baseline under which most factors are to be judged.

 

[Leoreth]

It's really easy actually, don't switch to a civic that can get it.

Haha, yes, I was aware of that

Definitely move it to FM. FM as a civic boosts your GDP far more than Capitalism.

Done in my working copy. By the way, I'm sorry that updates are so rare at the moment, but I'm still in the process of moving stability to the DLL which is a beast due to the complexity of the code. I only want to release it if DLL stability aligns completely with Python stability, and that's still not the case currently (I'm also working on a nice improved stability display).

GD is triggered when your Production is large compared to your Commerce/GDP.

You can keep track of it in the Demographics screen, by comparing your Production/Commerce with other civs (rival average, rival best).

To avoid it, you need to do some stupid things, e.g.

(1) Do NOT build Factories in your Production-weak cities. Instead, rely on hurrying for infrastructure there. This will slow down your Tech.

(2) Run pure Merchants. This will slow down your Tech compared to Scientists, but America in particular needs to run pure Merchants with Capitalism.

(3) Switch to FM asap. No other econ Civic can provide enough Commerce.

(4) Build Market-Grocer-Bank instead of Library-University-Observatory in all your cities. This will further slow down your Tech.

(5) Build Wealth, instead of Research, in your best Production cities. This slows down your Tech even further.

If you do all that you can run Capitalism with State Property and/or Assembly Plants and a reasonable number of Watermills, without ever triggering GD (check out my State Capitalist China Cultural Victory). The price, as I have noted, is that you get slower Tech in every conceivable way.

If you do that with America, you run the risk of loosing Pentagon to others, and cannot even hope to build the Radio Wonders. Or you could disregard that, go Production, and go through GDs.

Yeah, I think it's my tendency to focus science that drives me into depressions then.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Most of us play on Monarch + Normal though.

Remember that it's still the baseline under which most factors are to be judged.

I don't think Cottages grow slower on Emperor than on Monarch. Do they? It's just that Techs/Buildings are more expensive on Emperor. And Plague effects should be consistent across difficulties too. So the issues in this thread should be relevant across all difficulties and speeds.

In fact, on Monarch SE has even more benefits, since you receive an inherent Health/Happiness bonus in your cities compared to Emperor.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I don't think Cottages grow slower on Emperor than on Monarch. Do they? It's just that Techs/Buildings are more expensive on Emperor. And Plague effects should be consistent across difficulties too. So the issues in this thread should be relevant across all difficulties and speeds.

In fact, on Monarch SE has even more benefits, since you receive an inherent Health/Happiness bonus in your cities compared to Emperor.

They grow slower on Epic.

 

[Leoreth]

Okay, I've also looked into the plague module (also for the first time in ages) and apparently cottage degradation only applies when the plague enters a city anyway, but affects them even if they're worked by another city, which means they get easily targeted more than once in tightly settled Europe.

That's hard to prevent, so I decided to scrap cottage degradation altogether (except for towns). Instead, the plague only resets the upgrade counter, which imo hurts enough for villages, while it's not that bad for lower levels.

 

[Jusos2108]

Did I mention not to build any Cottages in the above? Do I have to mention that you Cottage with Capitalism? Maybe I should also mention that you build buildings in your cities?

Also, good luck with all the Wonders requirements if you Cottage every plain tile.

And I'm sure the prodigious +1 per tile of those Cottages will really help you tech race towards Assembly Line.

I suggest you play a CE America game and find out yourself. See if you'll be able to build all the Wonders and tech past Genetics/Satellites before 1930.

Quite the aggressor aren't you..?

My point was that with cottage economy you don't have to worry about GDs. So the best way to avoid GDs is to run a cottage economy. I didn't mention anywhere that this is the best way to play as America on Emperor, Epic, DoC 1.8xxx.

I might just take some time prove you wrong/right just for the fun of it.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Never mind.

 

[civ_king]

Haha, yes, I was aware of that


Done in my working copy. By the way, I'm sorry that updates are so rare at the moment, but I'm still in the process of moving stability to the DLL which is a beast due to the complexity of the code. I only want to release it if DLL stability aligns completely with Python stability, and that's still not the case currently (I'm also working on a nice improved stability display).

Cool, will this mean a substantial speed boost? (and then of course there is K-mod speed ups...)