Notes on 1.069

[Thalassicus]

The risk of making helicopters more powerful (than the intended 60) is they could overshadow tanks, since helicopters are so fast.

 

[Ahriman]

The domain penalty for siege units does not apply when attacked by air units; is this intended?

The open terrain penalty is 20%, I thought the design intention was 10%?

 

[Ahriman]

The most urgent change by far I think is reducing unit maintenance costs across the board.

 

[Ahriman]

Gatling guns (and presumably MGs) use their very low ranged defense value against aircraft. So bombers can annihilate them.

 

[Ahriman]

The passive railroad connection in the capital works, but there is also still a buildable Railway Connection.

 

[mystikx21]

The domain penalty for siege units does not apply when attacked by air units; is this intended?

The open terrain penalty is 20%, I thought the design intention was 10%?

Bombers get a +50% bonus against land units anyway? I can see a basis for the penalty however to still apply. This could encourages greater use of SAMs or AA guns to cover modern artillery units (or more fighters). I recall playing the panzer general series and sending out tactical bombers to hunt down their artillery first thing. Which was only a pain when they had air cover or AA.

Rough terrain is +10%, I'm pretty sure flat was always -20%. The raw change was -15% to rough, perhaps -15% (from 0) makes sense on flat?

 

[Ahriman]

If cannons and artillery have their ranged strength reduced, they could have their city attack bonus boosted to 60%.

They aren't too strong vs cities.

 

[Ahriman]

This could encourages greater use of SAMs or AA guns to cover modern artillery units (or more fighters).

The AI probably doesn't do this very well. I don't have an inherent objection to the penalty not applying, I think it is probably fine, I think artillery should mostly be vulnerable to air units, I just wanted to make sure it was intended. I don't think the effect vs MGs is intended.

Rough terrain is +10%, I'm pretty sure flat was always -20%

Ok, I remembered wrong, I thought they were -10 and +20.

 

[mystikx21]

Below: I fixed gunships to 60, artillery/cannons to most recent proposed values. (in start.sql)
Added lancer defence penalty (end.sql).

Proposed changes (in end.sql):
Changed MG/GG to not have a city attack penalty (their was already nerfed substantially more than 25%)
Reduced the cost adjustment factor by 20% for extra maintenance. I think that's where most of the higher cost comes from, it should probably be about -33% assuming VEM upkeep costs were ideal and assuming the strength factor is fine. The -1 function doesn't do much outside of the early game. Maintenance costs ought to be easy to balance mathematically I should think to fine tune the equation.

I'm not sure what's going on with the MG/GG change. Is it just MGs that use ranged strength or are archers/siege also?

 

[mystikx21]

If cannons and artillery have their ranged strength reduced, they could have their city attack bonus boosted to 60%.

They aren't too strong vs cities.

This would be simple enough to add the +10% vs cities from swords. Cannons would be more in need of it in my view than artillery (because of the range change).

 

[Thalassicus]

Some people say gold income is too high, others say gold expenses are too high. It's only possible to have one of those, so which one is it?

@Ahriman
Are you certain the passive railroad connection works in the capital? I'd check the production yield tooltip.

I could give machine guns +50% ranged defense. I hesitate removing their city attack penalty because they can cancel it with the +50% vs city siege promotion. I want to keep unit attribute modifiers less than or equal to +50%/-50%, because modifiers like these reduce the importance of promotions.

 

[mystikx21]

I'm not sure it can't be both. The problem with gold income was largely noted before unit upkeep changes were added. Unit upkeep kept VEM gold more balanced than the earlier stages of GEM were. But one reason it was balanced is unit costs were 1.4, thus mostly lower, unit strengths were mostly lower as well prior to GK, meaning their upkeep costs were expensive but manageable at the high end.

The upkeep formula is fairly balanced early. Archers, Chariots, and Warriors should be 2, Spears 3, Bowmen 4, Swords/Horses/Catapults 5. That looks like a reasonable progression (I think). Workers are 3 right now, apparently a subject of some dispute. I think they were fine at 2.

But units rapidly pass 10gpt in the renaissance era and keep climbing. Cannons are 11, Dragoons 13, Rifles and Artillery 15, Infantry 19, Tanks 31. Armor is 43. A tank was 21 and Armor was 28 in VEM. That's probably a pretty steep shift. Earlier units shifted by (mostly) adding 1-3 gpt each.

 

[mystikx21]

I think the curious part with MGs is that they're using their ranged strength to defend against planes, not that they're too weak against ranged attacks. Maybe that's what the default game does because those are identical in default?

(Concede the point about the siege promotion and city penalty on MGs. The promo has utility for defence as well as attack now, and wouldn't be totally useless).

 

[Ahriman]

Is it just MGs that use ranged strength or are archers/siege also?

I *think* archers and siege use ranged strength also, but those units have a high ranged strength, so it isn't a problem. MGs have a low ranged strength, so they are super vulnerable.

Perhaps it is possible to give them a defense bonus vs air units?

I hesitate removing their city attack penalty because they can cancel it with the +50% vs city siege promotion

I think it would be ok to block MGs from getting a city attack promotion, but if they are melee class units, I can see that might not be possible.

But as it stands, in an era where units are ~30 strength and cities are ~45 strength, 20 strength -25% gatling guns are utterly useless vs cities. Even with the promotion, they still wouldn't be that great, and that promotion has a significant opportunity cost; it blocks a promotion that would help them on defense, which is their role.

This would be simple enough to add the +10% vs cities from swords.

That sounds fine; avoids using an extra promotion slot.

Cannons would be more in need of it in my view than artillery (because of the range change).

Well, except that artillery have to be able to take on cities in both the early modern WW1 era and the WW2 era and most of the information era.

Some people say gold income is too high, others say gold expenses are too high. It's only possible to have one of those, so which one is it?

I think it is possible to have both gold income be too high (though I'm not sure this is the case anymore with some of the nerfs) and also have military unit maintenance be too high. Very high military maintenance punishes you heavily for pursuing a militaristic strategy.
And as mystikx says, the high gold income perception was mostly before the unit cost changes and the mint nerf.

Are you certain the passive railroad connection works in the capital? I'd check the production yield tooltip.

The production yield tooltip said it was there, that was what I was basing my claim on, and as soon as I reached railroad tech the silver three-dot trade route symbol appeared in the capital.
I didn't literally calculate whether it was being applied by ending turn and seeing how much production I got. We could wait for others to confirm.

But units rapidly pass 10gpt in the renaissance era and keep climbing. Cannons are 11, Dragoons 13, Rifles and Artillery 15, Infantry 19, Tanks 31. Armor is 43. A tank was 21 and Armor was 28 in VEM. That's probably a pretty steep shift.

Right. When a single unit is taking up the gold income of a medium sized city, we have a problem.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm not sure it can't be both. The problem with gold income was largely noted before unit upkeep changes were added. Unit upkeep kept VEM gold more balanced than the earlier stages of GEM were. But one reason it was balanced is unit costs were 1.4, thus mostly lower, unit strengths were mostly lower as well prior to GK, meaning their upkeep costs were expensive but manageable at the high end.

exactly this.

The upkeep formula is fairly balanced early. Archers, Chariots, and Warriors should be 2, Spears 3, Bowmen 4, Swords/Horses/Catapults 5. That looks like a reasonable progression (I think). Workers are 3 right now, apparently a subject of some dispute. I think they were fine at 2.

But units rapidly pass 10gpt in the renaissance era and keep climbing. Cannons are 11, Dragoons 13, Rifles and Artillery 15, Infantry 19, Tanks 31. Armor is 43. A tank was 21 and Armor was 28 in VEM. That's probably a pretty steep shift. Earlier units shifted by (mostly) adding 1-3 gpt each.

I don't think the upkeep formula is balanced early to be honest.

the problem seems to be that unit maintenance costs ramp up way too much too soon

take warriors vs scouts for example. imho there's no way a warrior should cost 2x maintenance! it's only better on the attack. the scout has cheaper production, more mobility and becomes stronger with nearby units.

look at sentinels next. they have the same maintenance cost as warriors, and they are so much better at everything they can do. it seems to be warriors are utterly useless right now.

I realize you want vanguards to have lower maintenance compared to mainline infantry and I tend to agree, but when the values are so low the gap between 1 and 2 is HUGE.

imho both scouts and warriors should be 1 and then it could ramp up from there, archers+spears+sentinels at 2, horsemen/swords/chariotarchers at 3 etc. I think this would allow to scale a lot better, i.e. less "sharply"

 

[Ahriman]

I would probably lean towards Gekko's numbers.

But the huge differentiation in upkeep costs is part of what drives the huge incentive to not upgrade units. I can save a *lot* of money by keeping my units 1 era behind until wartime, or in leaving low-cost ancient era units around for garrison duty.

This is why I wonder if it is better to revert to the vanilla maintenance system (at least for military units), where you are charged on the number of units and not their era.

If we keep the maintenance-costs tied to units, then the overall costs and the rate of increase needs to be much less, so that you aren't punished much for upgrading. As mystixk pointed out, the maintenance costs at the high end are 50% more than they were in VEM, and building maintenance costs are slightly higher too, and gold income if anything is lower because trading posts give a mix of gold and science (I thought we had decided to revert them to just gold?).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I think the hefty gold cost to updare is enough of an incentive to only upgrade promoted units

I think VEM/GEM maintenance system is great, definitely better than vanilla. it's just that the numbers need some tweaking.

 

[mystikx21]

Trading posts weren't changed at default. What was tabled was using monarchy to improve trading posts science function.

I do think some sort of obsolete unit cost would be useful to prevent gaming the system with chariots or scouts holding down honor garrisons. But I also prefer having differentiation on units, especially in the modern era. This also gives some extra utility to vanguard units (and thus mixed forces), air units, and the navy as well under the current system. The trade-off there is worthwhile (in my view).

What if this can be done: penalise a human player for obsolete units by raising upkeep by one per upgrade line bypassed? Or raising upkeep by adding one per era (and adjust the formula down to compensate so late game units don't get further hits)? There are obvious problems with strategic resource lines shifting or appearing on some units where they did not exist, etc.

The proposed change I made above was closer to Gekko's numbers on early units. Swords/Horses/Catapults would be 4 (I think this is preferable to 3). Spears would be 2, Chariots would stay 2. We could add something for warriors to be 1 and distinct from archers, but I have to wonder what incentive we should have to be building them anyway when spears or sentinels are around other than having a UU. They're already cheaper.

 

[mystikx21]

Perhaps it is possible to give them a defense bonus vs air units?

- This makes more sense than a blanket ranged defence promotion. It would also make (realism) sense that heavy machine gun units being strafed would be able to shoot back with some effect. Just not to cover other ground units like a full AA gun.

 

[Ahriman]

Trading posts weren't changed at default. What was tabled was using monarchy to improve trading posts science function.

Right, but I thought the decision had been made to revert them to the old VEM design where they just gave gold. Perhaps I misinterpreted. If we do have really high gold maintenance costs for units, then we need to be able to get enough gold to pay for them.

I do think some sort of obsolete unit cost would be useful to prevent gaming the system with chariots or scouts holding down honor garrisons. But I also prefer having differentiation on units, especially in the modern era. This also gives some extra utility to vanguard units (and thus mixed forces), air units, and the navy as well under the current system. The trade-off there is worthwhile (in my view).

I'm ok with differentiation across era, but would it then be possible to make it so you pay maintenance costs based on the era you're in, or the techs you have, such that obsolete units still have the maintenance cost of up-to-date units?
I guess that has an unfortunate side effect of penalizing you for getting tech, but it's probably manageable.

This makes more sense than a blanket ranged defence promotion. It would also make (realism) sense that heavy machine gun units being strafed would be able to shoot back with some effect.

Right, but it doesn't even need a realism reason, all it needs is a mechanical way for them to have something like their base strength rather than their ranged strength vs air units. It is a mechanical artifact that is making them so weak.