Player's Guide to Complex Traits

[tmv]

What if just techs with "matching flavors" were reduced in cost (perhaps according to the strength of the flavor)?

 

[Thunderbrd]

What if just techs with "matching flavors" were reduced in cost (perhaps according to the strength of the flavor)?

We don't have enough definition in flavors yet to enable such a direct relationship.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Giving it futher thought, it might be nice if I could manage to express something on a tech you do have a bonus or penalty to research it to at least say so on the hover-info when looking at the tech tree. MIght be a little tricky because I'm not sure how much the tech hover on the tree can be easily identified as the reason you're getting that hover. It should be doable.

 

[sorcdk]

I do agree that strategic depth is a noble goal, and it is probably one of the main advantages of the C2C mod. I really like how each era (at least up to and including industrial) feels different to research through, and having traits make certain paths through the tech tree more preferable would extend the amount of play time where one can feel as if you are still exploring the tech tree, which in turn would give more valuable in repeated plays.

The reason for my earlier critique can be boiled down to the following 2 points:

1. Neglectable Benefit: The effect of the changes was not noticeable enough for me to see a point in changing my tech path based on those benefits. This causes assumed goal of those changes to be missed in practice for me.
2. Annoying Cost: The application to an otherwise stable and roughly predictable central number (total beakers/turn) harmed an important (for me) emotional reward mechanism (growth of empire measured on research output), while also reducing quality of life level for the research part of the game.

Both of those problems are related to notablity and qualitly of life in accessing information. Because the benefit was not noticable and the cost was, then the effect on me as a player was that it overall lead to a worse player-experiance, which lead to me disabling that part in my own game. We can change cost/benefit ratio for the better by increasing the quality of life in accessing the different parts of the information, since the benefit is being keept down by being to annoying to measure out, while the cost is related to how reduces quality of life in accessing related information.

Giving it futher thought, it might be nice if I could manage to express something on a tech you do have a bonus or penalty to research it to at least say so on the hover-info when looking at the tech tree. MIght be a little tricky because I'm not sure how much the tech hover on the tree can be easily identified as the reason you're getting that hover. It should be doable.

This was kind of the thing I wanted it to go in the direction of, since after you get a few bonuses it ends up being hard to track the hundres of bonuses (each trait might give bonuses/maluses for like 10-40 different techs). My suggestion was to show this bonus through changing the cost of the tech instead of applying the bonus to the production. If you want to keep identical numerical behavior, then if the current form is new_total_research = (total_research * (100 + specific_tech_bonus))/100, then we could set the tech cost to new_tech_cost = (tech_cost*100)/(100 + specific_tech_bonus).

You also brought up the point of extending the mastery curve, and the problem with increasing quality of life in accessing information, is that increases the feedback the player get to improve their mastery with, which in turn increases rate of gaining mastery. The main thing to note is that the amount of mastery to gain is mostly preserved under such changes, so it would shortern the time one can build up mastery in. Personally I am partial to having access to the information, even if the cost is concentrating the mastery gain into a shorter periode, but that might also be related to the way I approach games.

 

[Esfera]

I have to say that I personally love how the Complex Traits modmod got implemented, by far the best innovation in v39.
Here are some proposals that I think can help improve the experience:

• After leadership level 5 the requeriments of culture to increase further your traits become a bit too excessive, maybe there shouldn't be a gap between levels that is that big.
• There should be a positive trait related to crime reduction, just like there is are two traits related to polution reduction (naturalist) and disease reduction.
• The positive traits centered around Golden Ages should be a bit more powerful.

That's all, pretty much a extremely good addiction to the game.
They are a quite interesting innovation as they promote the player's creativity as they may brand new strategies avalaible and make culture, as a output, more important (now, IMHO, C2C probably needs a espionage rework to balance espionage points, as they are by far the least useful output).

 

[raxo2222]

I
After leadership level 5 the requeriments of culture to increase further your traits become a bit too excessive, maybe there shouldn't be a gap between levels that is that big.

Culture requirements are scaled differently on game speed and probably other factors, but once cost reaches million national culture it just doubles on every trait selection.
So for example its 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000, 1 million, 2 million, 4 million and so on.

 

[tmv]

Culture requirements are scaled differently on game speed and probably other factors, but once cost reaches million national culture it just doubles on every trait selection.
So for example its 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000, 1 million, 2 million, 4 million and so on.

I think Esfera meant the factor 10 before that, or perhaps just the exponential increase.

 

[Thunderbrd]

This was kind of the thing I wanted it to go in the direction of, since after you get a few bonuses it ends up being hard to track the hundres of bonuses (each trait might give bonuses/maluses for like 10-40 different techs). My suggestion was to show this bonus through changing the cost of the tech instead of applying the bonus to the production. If you want to keep identical numerical behavior, then if the current form is new_total_research = (total_research * (100 + specific_tech_bonus))/100, then we could set the tech cost to new_tech_cost = (tech_cost*100)/(100 + specific_tech_bonus).

As I said, you cannot change the cost of the tech without there being problems with limitations that then other effects compiling on top of this one would potentially create. You could end up with techs that give you research for researching them.

However, I can see the benefit of making the tech hover over info tell you that you'll be doing better or worse at researching it and by how much depending on your traits.

After leadership level 5 the requeriments of culture to increase further your traits become a bit too excessive, maybe there shouldn't be a gap between levels that is that big.

Culture requirements are scaled differently on game speed and probably other factors, but once cost reaches million national culture it just doubles on every trait selection.
So for example its 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000, 1 million, 2 million, 4 million and so on.

This has changed, if you hadn't noticed. The change was in place for v39 though. It's not nearly so exponential at this point and although the early selections have slowed a lot, the later selections have become much more frequent than this original exponential model. It's certainly not a linear progression still but it's not as simple as to the 10th power each time.

Here's the thing... the game needs to be able to play very similarly between the options of having DL on and off in terms of end balance results. I wanted to be able to let you earn about 2 traits (and one negative) by the time the Ancient (original amount of traits on the original vanilla gamestart point). They obviously cannot be as strong as the traits are without DL so as to give some room for more traits to be selected after that without it really throwing off the game balance curve between the game WITH DL and the game without it.

That also means I cannot allow for lots and lots of selections beyond that point, which means that they have to come slower and slower the more you have selected. My goal is to have one have been able to select about 2 tier 3 traits by the end of the game, maybe a little more if you've pushed to get a lot more.

That would probably mean that you've made about 3 or 4 tier II selections and potentially even more tier I selections. And I think that's about where we're at. Everyone can and WILL argue for more or less than that for many reasons. There is no balance that suits all here. So I'm trying to take something of a middle of the road. On one side players love making trait picks and want MORE and on the other, players feel like there are too many trait based bonuses coming into play with so many picks available.

The positive traits centered around Golden Ages should be a bit more powerful.

Noted, though I'm concerned they are too powerful already.

now, IMHO, C2C probably needs a espionage rework to balance espionage points, as they are by far the least useful output

Even though you can straight steal cities and cause a complete loss of all city defense, nuclear attacks and more with spies?

 

[sorcdk]

Concerning Golden Age traits, then there is a huge difference in how good they are dependent on whether you have pure traits on or not, since a lot of the traits that benefit one aspect of golden ages hurts another aspect, which makes it hard to stack well without having pure traits on. I havent really seen this effect on other aspects, but I usually play with pure traits so I might have simply overlooked it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Concerning Golden Age traits, then there is a huge difference in how good they are dependent on whether you have pure traits on or not, since a lot of the traits that benefit one aspect of golden ages hurts another aspect, which makes it hard to stack well without having pure traits on. I havent really seen this effect on other aspects, but I usually play with pure traits so I might have simply overlooked it.

I would not recommend Pure Traits. It's really only included because there were so many loud voices both for and against having negative aspects on positive traits and so on. I was one of those that strongly felt traits should have a blend of both, in part so that they could BE better balanced in this way. It's very intentional that traits that give you more frequent golden ages tend to reduce the length of them to help counterbalance the additional frequency of them you can get. Then, too, when you get a trait that increases the length and effectiveness of GAs, it counterbalances the length if you are trying to blend that with greater frequency OF GAs.

Anyhow, I do feel that with Pure Traits you get a much more power skewed system towards being far more powerful than the curve, and that's where you start really distancing yourself from the Non-DL game progression structure. So when you're WAY out ahead of the dating, and working with a nearly infinite enhanced golden age and as a result able to completely ignore anarchy times, that's somewhat why.

 

[Thunderbrd]

OK, new challenge since one has been requested:

The Criminal

Positive traits you can select:
-Imperialist
-Efficient
-Deceiver
-Philosophical

Negative trait you must maintain as your primary focus and enhance whenever possible:
-Crooked

Other Negatives you can select as long as you have as much Crooked as possible:
-Cruel
-Megalomaniac

 

[raxo2222]

Following Great people can start golden age (no number at trait name means no developing leaders):
Great General - Strategist, Strategist 1, Strategist 3
Great Admiral - Strategist 2
Great Prophet - Spiritual, Spiritual 1,
Great Doctor (one of rarest GPs to obtain) - Medical, Medical 1
Spiritual is best pick for Golden Age generation, as Great Prophet is very easy to get.

I'll list level 1 traits (negative traits can have boost too with impure traits), that boost GP or GA length:
Great people generation boosters:
Philosophical +50%
Glorious +25% with state religion
Pious +15% with state religion
Anticlerical (negative) +10% without state religion
Creative +10%
Financial +10%
Gluttonous (negative) +10%
Scientific +10%
Zealous (negative) +10% with state religion.
Careless (negative) +5%
Civilized +5%
Humanitarian +5%
Meek (negative) +5%
Megalomaniac (negative) +5%
There is tradeoff: If you pick Spiritual you can't pick Zealous, Anticlerical and Pious - you can pick only one of those four traits.
Spiritual is free golden age every time great prophet is born, so you want this one.

In total you can get +140% GP generation on first level traits, if you pick Spiritual trait.
You can accompany it with civics and buildings. Steal great wonders too.
If you are bit slower with traits, then you can get second level of Philosophical/glorious traits too.
Spiritual trait has -25% to Golden Age length - you can balance it out with Careless for example.

Golden Age extenders:
Glorious +50%
Progressive +50%
Careless (negative) +25%
Liar (negative) +20%
Charismatic +10%
Negligent +10%
Stubborn (negative) +10%

Golden age extending tags are one of rarest things in mod.
Only six wonders can do it:
Ascension Gate [Ascension] +100% - this one is almost at end of tech tree, so you won already.
Cheomseongdae [Stargazing] +20%
Mausoleum of Maussollos [Calendar] +50%
World News Network [Mass Media] +25%
Nara [Bronze Working] +50% - you must have Buddhism as state religion though.
Galactic News [Wormhole Communication] +25%

So you have three golden age extender wonders in Ancient/Classical era, and then you have three others in Atomic/Galactic/Transcendent eras.

10 wonders can start golden age:
Ascension Gate [Ascension]
Bird Nest Stadium [Modern Sports]
Neuschwanstein [Romanticism]
Pyramid of the Magician [Calendar] - Needs Naghualism religion, but you can change back to Buddhism to claim other wonder.
Technological Capital [Terra Computer]
The Taj Mahal [Nationalism]
Crystal Palace [Imperialism]
Interstellar Olympics [Wormhole Traversal]
Captured Fire [Controlled Fire] - this national wonder is in very early game.
Valley of the Kings [Sculpture] - build Pyramids and Sphinx in same city to get this wonder
These are more spread out in tech tree - some in Prehistoric/Ancient/Classical, most between Renaissance-Atomic and then few others in future eras.

So traits are absolutely overpowered when it comes to boosting/starting Golden Age - that is much better than wonders. Also I listed only level I traits - if you were bit slower, then you could get level II GP/GA boosters.

There are 23 buildings (excluding education pseudobuildings), that have GP modifiers (civics can do this too).
They often require religion and or civic.

 

[Esfera]

The positive traits centered around Golden Ages should be a bit more powerful.

After seeing Raxo's post about the GA and GP exploit that @LumenAngel (probably) used I don't longer think that traits like Glorious and Honest are underpowered. Glorious and Honest are traits centered around improving the output of cities during GA, they give a flat buff (as of v39:+4 to each output at tier I) during those periods.
If you don't know what I am talking about when I say that Lumen (probably) used this exploit read this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...0th-of-july-2019.647928/page-56#post-15540558

There should be a positive trait related to crime reduction, just like there is are two traits related to polution reduction (naturalist) and disease reduction.

I noticed that as of v39 Lawful has this role. Humanitarian, to an extent, also reduces crime (-0.25 crime per pop).
My bad.

I'll list level 1 traits (negative traits can have boost too with impure traits), that boost GP or GA length:
Great people generation boosters:
Philosophical +50%

Consider the following: some traits such as Philosophical also provide the player with a free specialist for each National Wonder built on a city.
That can be a huge adventage when it comes to GP.
If you try to maximize free specialists and you combine it with civics such as 'Caste System' (as of v39: -10% GP but unlimited merchants, scientists and engineers) you obtain tons of GP for the especific type of great specialist you desire.

Even though you can straight steal cities and cause a complete loss of all city defense, nuclear attacks and more with spies?

Hey Thunderbrd, are we talking about the Advanced Espionage game option or is there something I have been missing?

 

[JosEPh_II]

So traits are absolutely overpowered when it comes to boosting/starting Golden Age

+1 They need serious reductions.

Also a Limit on number of Consecutive GAs allowed. With a set number of turns per Game Speed before the Next GA can be done. But this will probably be too hard to implement. So the current GA Exploit will live on and seriously warp good gameplay. Exploits are Not good game play.

 

[Thunderbrd]

In most trait combinations there are exploits to be found. The Golden Age exploit is one of them. Of course, it doesn't offer any stronger military, and the primary benefit of being in a golden age is a somewhat elevated yield/commerce output and reduced requirements for growth of a city plus a lack of anarchy periods. If you go all out to start generating an infinite golden age, you MIGHT be able to. Keep in mind what you were looking at was the save of a player who had also manipulated the XML so that he could more easily achieve that as a goal.

Sure, it might be possible to get almost infinite GAs even if you don't twist the game rules to do it. However, it takes a lot of focus on trying to achieve that goal to get it. The traits that give you a GA on specialists birthing also give a reduced overall span of time for GAs when you have them so there's some natural countering built into that if you aren't throwing off intended balances with the Pure Traits option. Before you jump to assume that it is too powerful to arrange yourself around a Golden Age strategy, consider how strong other focused strategies can also be. Are Golden Ages really so beneficial that it's an end all be all game strategy to get one going every round of the game?

If you want a lot of yields and commerces, maybe you could get as much as you can earn from a constant golden age by not even having to have a golden age if you go down some other paths. If you want no anarchy, as a much cheaper side benefit, it's not hard to collect the bonuses to eliminate that either. If you want the growth, the traits focused on that may be able to easily best what could be obtained through the GA route. Perhaps trade focus can achieve you even more while also giving you some military benefits. What other harmful penalties are you saddling yourself with when you strive for the GA path?

Additionally, GP are a funny thing... you can race through getting a ton of them early on if you push to get as many as you can (which can lead to quite a few golden ages by using them for that purpose as well) BUT you can also start finding them harder to get in later in the game because the thresholds to earn more also grow exponentially with each one you birth, so you might find you're making the corporate era a lot more difficult to master as a result.

The entire point of this option is to find the exploits. That you've found one doesn't make it immediately too strong. Might seem like it, but I've had players arguing that numerous other combinations are too powerful as well. The point is that you can create very powerful combinations - but so what when other very powerful combinations can also be had that produce different game strengths that are equally as powerful? One super set is not automatically better than others.

I've been testing this strategy for myself so far and have not yet found it more imbalancing than some other approaches that have also been put under some scrutiny.

Hey Thunderbrd, are we talking about the Advanced Espionage game option or is there something I have been missing?

Yes, hardly even an option imo. Further, I've recently been informed of how easy it is to keep up on tech if you generate high espionage output, and at the moment it might be a bit too easy through certain routes to do so.

 

[raxo2222]

Well wonders extending golden age and staring it lose most of their value - this is why I called them imbalanced - they overpower wonders, just like sheer amount of buildings overpower traits, civics and property pseudobuildings when it comes to yields/commerces.

Spiritual trait is reliable way to get golden ages, as each prophet birth gives you golden age.
So there with maximized GP generation you can have constant golden age, also you can stash other GPs for later use.

Traits giving golden age on great general/admiral are nice too.

Golden age from great doctor is joke, because you maybe you can get one or two of them during entire game.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Spiritual trait is reliable way to get golden ages, as each prophet birth gives you golden age.
So there with maximized GP generation you can have constant golden age, also you can stash other GPs for later use.

Of course, if you do that and you want to then take advantage of further benefits you're closer to having earned for taking Spiritual I and you take Spiritual II, you're continuing to diminish the length of your GAs as well. If you only take that first step in, you can maximize your benefit on that and if that's your goal, it's silly not to take Glorious as well and then also focus on GP birthing. But if all your GP birthing is prophets, you totally lose out on corporations.

The Doctor one may seem like not too valuable right now due to the weakness in our disease system but I think that there's a margin of balance that will be filled by future development. Also, the trait itself makes Great Doctors much more common to obtain.

 

[JosEPh_II]

you totally lose out on corporations.

How many players really use Corporations? In all my years of playing I have never used them but once or twice a long long time ago. Back when getting into the late game was a regular occurrence. And I found them to be too fiddly and not very cost effective. And there was no Victory Condition for who can have the Most Gold. Though the couple of times I used Corps I did not generate the gold I thought I would. So it turned me off from their usage.

Just another layer of "fluff" to me. And not a real item to manage to win a game on Most of the Victory conditions. Just my 2 cents of Corps.

 

[raxo2222]

How many players really use Corporations? In all my years of playing I have never used them but once or twice a long long time ago. Back when getting into the late game was a regular occurrence. And I found them to be too fiddly and not very cost effective. And there was no Victory Condition for who can have the Most Gold. Though the couple of times I used Corps I did not generate the gold I thought I would. So it turned me off from their usage.

Just another layer of "fluff" to me. And not a real item to manage to win a game on Most of the Victory conditions. Just my 2 cents of Corps.

These can boost food/production/research/commerce/other stuff depending on their type - just expand them and build their shops

Pedia is fast, so you can take a look at them quickly.

Thunderbrd, if 30% - 60% of GPs are prophets, then you can stash other GPs for later use.
Also you can try to grab all heroes to have as much Noble specialists as possible - Noble is only specialist, that gives GP points.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Thunderbrd, if 30% - 60% of GPs are prophets, then you can stash other GPs for later use.

Yeah and if 90% of them are prophets you will have a problem.

How many players really use Corporations? In all my years of playing I have never used them but once or twice a long long time ago. Back when getting into the late game was a regular occurrence. And I found them to be too fiddly and not very cost effective. And there was no Victory Condition for who can have the Most Gold. Though the couple of times I used Corps I did not generate the gold I thought I would. So it turned me off from their usage.

Just another layer of "fluff" to me. And not a real item to manage to win a game on Most of the Victory conditions. Just my 2 cents of Corps.

Wow. I admit my wife and I started playing mods a little later than some and we really played the hell out of vanilla BtS beforehand but Corps were nearly everything to our game play at that time. They are even more powerful in C2C. There are a lot of things you need to do just right to make corps work out well but when you do, nothing is more powerful in the game. Hands down. I suppose the game is usually decided by then with the AI we have right now though.