Player's Guide to Complex Traits

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah? Cool... funny how infrequently I actually look at the list. I'm usually just responding to alerts.

 

[River974]

Hi, I find this system very nice. I particularly like the features that change the gameplay by giving a unique bonus / penalty.
Some questions:
- is there a way to change a trait (Liar 1 to Naive 1) ? (By worldbuilder or scripts ?) Contrary to what I thought the diplomatic penalty is really painful...
- Spiritual starts a golden age when an Illustrious Prophet born, does this also concern the illustrious phrophetes that one gains by discovering new religions?

 

[Thunderbrd]

- is there a way to change a trait (Liar 1 to Naive 1) ? (By worldbuilder or scripts ?) Contrary to what I thought the diplomatic penalty is really painful...

Use taking a positive trait to instead remove a negative one and vice versa, then the next selection you can take what you wanted instead.

Spiritual starts a golden age when an Illustrious Prophet born, does this also concern the illustrious phrophetes that one gains by discovering new religions?

Yes

 

[cammcken]

I have considered giving a 'randomize' option selection in the trait selection list that would completely pick one of the availables at random in case you are interested in playing a game that throws at you different challenges you wouldn't expect or if you just can't figure out what you want to choose. It'd be a bit of a trick to pull off but I've already spent some thought pondering how it could work.

What about a card draw system? Eg., the menu pops up with five traits randomly selected from the list of available choices, and you have to choose one of those five.

I'm sure I'll have more thoughts later, but just a few for now:

1. I'm not sure I like how Imperialistic has become mostly a military trait now. When I think of empires, it's not just about conquering new land but also governing the vast land already held: The Roman empire, not Alexander's empire. I think it could either use some peace-time benefits mixed in, or simply a name change. I like the focus on siege units though; they're often neglected.

• It puts Charlemagne in a weird position... Imperialistic and Protective. Good city attack and good city defense. So... what? Do I let them come to me, or do I take my army to their gates?

2. I'm still thinking of BtS's main strategies: the cottage economy vs the specialist economy. Maybe this is an antiquated mindset which C2C has evolved beyond, but I use it until I learn better. For a quick summary of what I'm thinking: Specialist economy has the advantage of being more flexible to needs (can instantly reassign specialists to different types or to work mines) and recovers better after losing population to drafts/whips (can stop working specialists and mines in favor of farms), but has the disadvantage of requiring double the population for the same yields (one pop to work the farm, another to work the specialist), straining the limits of happiness/healthiness/crime/disease. Cottage economy is more efficient per pop, but needs to change improvements to make food/production adjustments and relies on the sliders to address empire needs.

I notice that there are a lot of traits supporting the specialist economy by boosting specialist yields, while only the single Efficient trait pushes players toward cottage economies. Is there something I'm missing (entirely possible, because there's a lot going on and I haven't thought of all the possible implications)? Edit: Looks like Prolific too.

• The Excessive trait, for example, has few penalties for someone focusing on a specialist economy, since their cities will produce very little commerce to begin with. Combined with something such as Agricultural (Hatshepsut) or Financial / Scientific (Mansa Musa), the SE becomes the obvious choice.

However, I notice a new dynamic emerging. Some traits confer their benefits mostly to slaves and citizens, the "generic specialists" which have fewer quantity restrictions; some traits benefit only "professional specialists" such as artists, merchants and spies, and some traits benefit all specialists. It seems like trait combinations are pushing players to emphasize one of these two specialist types. I'll have to play more to see how this theory works out.

• And, to a lesser extent, priests have their own thing going on to, making another little category.

3. Tall vs Wide isn't too visible in traits. There are some considerations — maintenance cost from number of cities vs maintenance cost from distance — but I'm trying to think of any others. Most traits are balanced between the two — offering both a flat yield per city and a multiplicative modifier. When a trait favors one over the other, it's subtle. I might loosely throw trade-route focuses and pragmatic into the Tall group and golden age focuses into the Wide group, but I'm really not sure. What do I not see? (Besides the obvious: Preeminent for Tall, Expansive and Organized for wide.)

The issue above also muddies this one. Theoretically, the specialist economy can better handle more cities closer together while cottage economy thrives going tall, because happiness and health effects are per city and, to a lesser extent, so are crime and disease more efficiently managed by buildings. SE cities will run into their population limit sooner and thus will use less land per city.

 

[Yudishtira]

I have considered giving a 'randomize' option selection in the trait selection list that would completely pick one of the availables at random in case you are interested in playing a game that throws at you different challenges you wouldn't expect or if you just can't figure out what you want to choose. It'd be a bit of a trick to pull off but I've already spent some thought pondering how it could work. I think I'd like that over an addendum game option that makes it always happen, for positive or negative or both selections, because that way you can choose at each juncture if you want to randomize or not. Don't expect this right away though because it's a little complicated to establish.

Whenever I have to choose a trait, I always do it randomly. Probably always will.

Thus "choosing traits that fit your playstyle"... wouldn't fit my playstyle.

 

[ecawilson]

2. I'm still thinking of BtS's main strategies: the cottage economy vs the specialist economy.

I can't tell you if C2C has the same 'main strategies' as civ4... but your list for civ4 is almost a decade old. The espionage and wonder (and strike?) economies have proven themselves at least as strong, probably much, much stronger. My only point here is that evaluating traits (or units, or buildings, or whatever) inside that 'cottage v specialist' mindset limits you as a player (which is fine, that can be more fun for anyone), but also would pigeonhole development into something even more restrictive. I get the impression that C2C's overarching development goal is the opposite.

 

[cammcken]

And I'm quite aware there are wide swathes of strategies I don't see, but I need some framework to make decisions. Otherwise, answers to questions such as "How should I improve this tile?" are reduced to "Whatever feels right." Although that can be fun, it doesn't satisfy my strategic mind.

If you've developed new insights on how C2C plays, I'd love to read about them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

1. I'm not sure I like how Imperialistic has become mostly a military trait now. When I think of empires, it's not just about conquering new land but also governing the vast land already held: The Roman empire, not Alexander's empire. I think it could either use some peace-time benefits mixed in, or simply a name change. I like the focus on siege units though; they're often neglected.

The Roman empire was strong at management but let's face it - it was better at taking than at holding things together. Imperialism is focused on the growth of the empire, particularly by assimilating others, and it would require other traits to support that larger nation once you have it. If leaders could only be one trait, I'd agree with expanding on the theme.

It puts Charlemagne in a weird position... Imperialistic and Protective. Good city attack and good city defense. So... what? Do I let them come to me, or do I take my army to their gates?

I'd think many players would like that sort of combination of strong attack AND defense. Quite contrary to being a weird position, I'd think it would be one where you could take what you want AND hold it regardless of what those you've bullied around try to do about it.

Edit: Looks like Prolific too.

Yeah, you answered your own point how I was going to. If there is a trait that focuses on that sort of strategy, prolific is largely 'the one', though it would be cool to see a full build suggestion based on that specialist economy, one that also looks for reducing the unhappiness from sacrifices and enhances slave strength and specialists of all sorts.

However, I notice a new dynamic emerging. Some traits confer their benefits mostly to slaves and citizens, the "generic specialists" which have fewer quantity restrictions; some traits benefit only "professional specialists" such as artists, merchants and spies, and some traits benefit all specialists. It seems like trait combinations are pushing players to emphasize one of these two specialist types. I'll have to play more to see how this theory works out.

• And, to a lesser extent, priests have their own thing going on to, making another little category.

Yes, these were both intended build concepts one could focus on.

Tall vs Wide isn't too visible in traits. There are some considerations — maintenance cost from number of cities vs maintenance cost from distance — but I'm trying to think of any others. Most traits are balanced between the two — offering both a flat yield per city and a multiplicative modifier. When a trait favors one over the other, it's subtle. I might loosely throw trade-route focuses and pragmatic into the Tall group and golden age focuses into the Wide group, but I'm really not sure. What do I not see? (Besides the obvious: Preeminent for Tall, Expansive and Organized for wide.)

There are traits that focus on growing population and those that focus on expanding cities. It's not like all traits are falling to favor one or the other but there's a few that are clearly there to support one over the other. ... the 'obvious' ones you point out for example.

An interesting collection of considerations here and a big part of what all of these puzzle pieces are designed to get you thinking about.

Whenever I have to choose a trait, I always do it randomly. Probably always will.

Thus "choosing traits that fit your playstyle"... wouldn't fit my playstyle.

Yeah, I can understand that. I would like to do the randomization thing at some point. Do you usually roll dice to decide? How do you go about randomizing now?

I can't tell you if C2C has the same 'main strategies' as civ4... but your list for civ4 is almost a decade old. The espionage and wonder (and strike?) economies have proven themselves at least as strong, probably much, much stronger. My only point here is that evaluating traits (or units, or buildings, or whatever) inside that 'cottage v specialist' mindset limits you as a player (which is fine, that can be more fun for anyone), but also would pigeonhole development into something even more restrictive. I get the impression that C2C's overarching development goal is the opposite.

Well put. Indeed the goal is to enable a more diverse set of strategies. Once the AI is taught these differences more specifically, I can see this thing becoming absolutely crack addictive to play for that reason.

And I'm quite aware there are wide swathes of strategies I don't see, but I need some framework to make decisions. Otherwise, answers to questions such as "How should I improve this tile?" are reduced to "Whatever feels right." Although that can be fun, it doesn't satisfy my strategic mind.

If you've developed new insights on how C2C plays, I'd love to read about them.

Me too! Not that I haven't considered all sorts of things but I love to see what players are thinking about overall unique approaches to gameplay. It helps to have more to focus specifically on in the design process.

 

[Yudishtira]

Yeah, I can understand that. I would like to do the randomization thing at some point. Do you usually roll dice to decide? How do you go about randomizing now?

d20 is usually enough, but of course with two dice you can make d25, d30, d40, d144 etc, etc.

 

[Thunderbrd]

d20 is usually enough, but of course with two dice you can make d25, d30, d40, d144 etc, etc.

Interesting. Are there usually less than 20 possible selections? I've never really taken a final count of the usual amount of possible selections.

 

[Esfera]

The Excessive trait, for example, has few penalties for someone focusing on a specialist economy, since their cities will produce very little commerce to begin with. Combined with something such as Agricultural (Hatshepsut) or Financial / Scientific (Mansa Musa), the SE becomes the obvious choice.

I have to recognise something, while vanilla BtS promotes a tile economy, C2C does indeed promote a specialist-focused economy, and as specialist-focused player that's a guilty pleasure of mine. Even though I'm biased I recognise there's somewhat of an unfair adventage here.
However, I have to say that if the mod developers want to balance this they shouldn't penalise specialist-focused economies, they should boost tile-focused economies.
I saw what the developers did with slaves, I agree that slaves were clearly unbalanced, but now they're unbalanced in the other direction, they were "nerfed" so much that a slaving civilization is now at a clear disadvetange, there's no incentive to enslave in the mid game

And, to a lesser extent, priests have their own thing going on to, making another little category.

Considering how strong the Spiritualist trait is, allowing players to obtain crazy amounts of Golden Ages through exploits, we shouldn't go that way.

because happiness and health effects are per city and

There's also another set of traits that are helpful for tall players, such as humanitarian or medical, which provide flat bonuses, something that is way more useful for tall players than for wide players.

While Specialist economies are at disadventage at producing like you pointed out, compared with civilizations with traits such as Agricultural (like Hatshepsut) there's a trait that provides per specialist, Naturalist, a trait that's very useful for specialist economies.

 

[Thunderbrd]

However, I have to say that if the mod developers want to balance this they shouldn't penalise specialist-focused economies, they should boost tile-focused economies.

Have you seen just how many yields most tiles give right now? I mean, I'm sure more balance is there to be had but tiles are usually still a little better than a specialist. They will be much more so when tiles also add GP pts later in the plan here.

I saw what the developers did with slaves, I agree that slaves were clearly unbalanced, but now they're unbalanced in the other direction, they were "nerfed" so much that a slaving civilization is now at a clear disadvetange, there's no incentive to enslave now.

Haven't played for a while but I kinda doubt I'd agree with this still since collecting slaves is still a major goal for me as a player. I would like to think that most of MY core citizenry would be above slaving and should be mostly better used as assigned specialists elsewhere. Let the captured be the slaves.

Considering how strong the Spiritualist trait is, allowing players to obtain crazy amounts of Golden Ages through exploits, we shouldn't go that way.

I don't think he was saying we should be enhancing that, just recognizing that there is a strategy in it. I also recognize that it's a little too prominent a strategy but I also think much of that has to do with still having too many sources of prophets coming into play. I MAY also keep this effect out on DP when free prophets are awarded to make it more balanced, though the Generals are also a little problematic for various reasons that make them a little too easy to spawn for this to work properly.

There's also another set of traits that are helpful for tall players, such as humanitarian or medical, which provide flat bonuses, something that is way more useful for tall players than for wide players.

Very true. Good observation.

 

[VCrakeV]

Personally, I enjoy a mixture of specialists and worked tiles. I find this strategy (if you can call it that) works best with traits that provide free specialists. For example, most games I pick "philosophical", which adds a free specialist in every city for each wonder (national and world) in that city. Rush wonders with traders and/or whips. Use whatever your cities' tiles are best for (mines, cottages, farms), and use specialists to make up for what your tiles lack.

 

[ecawilson]

If you've developed new insights on how C2C plays, I'd love to read about them.

I haven't developed anything. I am not that smart. But searching this forum and others for terms like "espionage economy" or "wonderbread" will show you what I mean. "Strike Economy" is also something interesting, though I can't say I understand it well enough to be used on its own, just in conjunction with the espionage

 

[Thunderbrd]

I haven't developed anything. I am not that smart. But searching this forum and others for terms like "espionage economy" or "wonderbread" will show you what I mean. "Strike Economy" is also something interesting, though I can't say I understand it well enough to be used on its own, just in conjunction with the espionage

Can you give some details on the meanings of those terms? I'm curious...

 

[ecawilson]

That was more of a 'tease' than I meant for it to be. I just didn't have a link for an appropriate source. Sorry about that.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ace-strategies-from-a-10-year-veteran.574724/

This will look interesting to someone with experience at playing civ4. You will learn a few things, and maybe even be motivated to try something he suggests...
But, to someone who has really played BtS or vanilla, tried to push the game or their own ability to its limits, tried to comprehend what is really happening in AI decision making or even just considered how to micromanage tile improvements and build queues and tech choices, this Will BLOW your mind!!

That thread introduces wonderbread for the first time, gives a master class in the strike economy, but only briefly mentions what espionage economy means in terms of how powerful it is.
I am not suggesting that any of these strategies is 'best' or even 'functional' for C2C. That is the opposite point I was making. The point was supposed to be that intentionally limiting the perspective or number of ways a game 'can' be won to a duality or even an artificially low set size when examining things like 'balance' or 'tradeoffs' necessarily leads to problems.
To be clear, I am in no way suggesting that, in order to be a developer of this or any game, one must either be an expert in it or be able to easily conceive of all possible win strategies or play styles. I don't think that is possible, and I am confident that Firaxis never conceived of a huge nation's economy running completely on wonderbread. Or for espionage, I hold it highly unlikely that they believed a nation could win a space race, as continuous tech leader from ancient times, with or without tech trading, at the highest difficulty level, while running the research slider at 0% after courthouses. But, had they, they could have made a few tweaks to increase the player choices and also make the AI even more fun and interesting. And I gather that is kind of the big picture goal of this mod.

 

[philipschall]

I know it's been said before but Priests are OP with custom traits, even without the golden ages

1 -1 humanist
1 naturalist 1
1 naturalist 2
1, , spiritualist 1
1, , spiritualist 2
1, , spiritualist 3

4 1 2 2 2 1 per specialist, with jewish and hellenic giving even more bonuses through wonders. You can do unlimited priests with state church or theocracy.
Though it's unlikely you'll get all of those traits, just by specializing 3 traits into spiritualist and 1 into naturalist you can have super citizens that provide a bonus to everything.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I know it's been said before but Priests are OP with custom traits, even without the golden ages

1 -1 humanist
1 naturalist 1
1 naturalist 2
1, , spiritualist 1
1, , spiritualist 2
1, , spiritualist 3

4 1 2 2 2 1 per specialist, with jewish and hellenic giving even more bonuses through wonders. You can do unlimited priests with state church or theocracy.
Though it's unlikely you'll get all of those traits, just by specializing 3 traits into spiritualist and 1 into naturalist you can have super citizens that provide a bonus to everything.

You can easily get more than 12 yields by then on a plot as well. Farms and Mines by late game are how high?

 

[philipschall]

You can easily get more than 12 yields by then on a plot as well. Farms and Mines by late game are how high?

Yeah, but by then you've already got enough pops to max out your cross to begin with. At least, that's been my experience.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah, but by then you've already got enough pops to max out your cross to begin with. At least, that's been my experience.

True and it takes time to get that many yields, both through traits and techs to enhance the plots with.

We've done a lot to enhance plot use and maybe at some point will do even more depending. And your feedback is well noted as a possible place where we could have an issue. I think part of what may make this a problem, if it is one, is that there are civics still (I think) that make infinite priest assignments possible, and perhaps there are simply too many buildings making too many priest assignments possible as well. This would put them in a more exploitable category than the other ones that build up particular specialists a lot, which would make the yields PRIESTS get better than yields other specialists get and all specialists were mostly given the same weight to additional yields so there could be some other balance needs surrounding this.