Player's Guide to Complex Traits

That's -1 Education per 4 population, not -4/population. At least, it's supposed to be. I also verified that earlier with AIAndy and the rest of the team on the forum here, but I do have some concerns that it's still calculating at exactly what you said.

I have seen that with or without it, education is a lot more challenging to keep up with but a big part of that is also part of the way too much growth problem, which I'm thinking is more to blame. I might need to scale down the additional req +1per population per era to per/2 eras to smooth that out better.
He plays Complex Traits without Developing Traits it seems - with developing traits first level of idealistic reduces education by population/9 that is -1 per 9 pops.
And yeah there is shown that population value is divided by 4.
Spoiler :

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So he should have -1 education per 4 pop in addition to +1 crime and disease per 4 pop.
 
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Do you believe that if Tier I were to have only a 5% bonus, then 10% at Tier II and 15% at Tier III, that would balance this out better?
Probably - as it currently stands, Preeminent is about as good as every specialist trait in the area where it's specialized, at least for the capital. And the exp bonus doesn't hurt, either. With your new proposal, Preeminent II and III could still be interesting for someone who plays extremely tall, without outright punishing the "wide" player (could almost revive OCC [Edit: if it wasn't for resources]).
 
I usually did not find edu to be a big Problem, but an aktuell Challenge at exactly the right Level. But the last Game i played is now about 3 months ago. Also keep in mind that for most of the Game i avoid growth to keep my cities at size 6 and later 13 and only in ind era and beyond I allow unlimited growth.

What devices do you use to do this? Just the Avoid City Growth button in the City screen? Or is there more?

@Raxxo, ThunderBrd,
If it is actually -1 ED per 4 pop for Idealistic as you both state, then the underlying problem of Education Pop Decay is still a real problem for the expanding Need for STs and Bards up thru Med Era for any game not just using a Leader that has Idealistic Trait. As I have been seeing this problem for quite sometime now.

Either this needs changed:
<PropertyManipulators>
<PropertySource>
<PropertySourceType>PROPERTYSOURCE_DECAY</PropertySourceType>
<PropertyType>PROPERTY_EDUCATION</PropertyType>
<GameObjectType>GAMEOBJECT_CITY</GameObjectType>
<iPercent>4</iPercent>
</PropertySource>

Or the amount of Education that ST's and their line gives needs Upped. ST's need to give +2 immediately. And Not 5 turns after they are placed On Teaching as it seems to be the case currently with their +1ED. Then Bards and up adjusted accordingly. Having a size 13 City with a dozen ST And every possible ED giving building built and still have declining Ed levels is a bit much.
 
10512
Simplified property manipulators in traits. This doesn't have any effect in game except for more readable form.

I Hope this is all it does. Call me Skeptical. :)
 
That Does Not give me confidence in this case raxxo. :cringe::rolleyes:
Why? It would be AIAndy or koshling fault if properties weren't behaving correctly with that syntax.
Players would already report erroneous behavior.
By the way if property level is 1000 and decay is 5%, then it will be reduced to 950 on next turn, if other factors cancel out.
 
That Does Not give me confidence in this case raxxo. :cringe::rolleyes:
I wasn't either which is why I brought it up to the team about a week before releasing the traits to ensure I had it right with those who know better than I. Still, even without a penalty to education I experience it being more challenging so I won't deny there's a need for some rebalancing there. I think a bit part of it is from growing too fast so I'll look at what we need to do after that ship is righted a bit and I have some time to focus on it.
 
What devices do you use to do this? Just the Avoid City Growth button in the City screen? Or is there more?

Nope, only this Button (and assuming the City doesnt work unnecessary tiles then). That was property control is very easy, even on deity.
 
Nope, only this Button (and assuming the City doesnt work unnecessary tiles then). That was property control is very easy, even on deity.
I have rarely if ever used it. It feels to me that if you do you will fall even more behind the AI by stopping your cities growth. Even with all the Property management involved. Just hard for me to see how a size 6 or 13 city will compete with the AI's 25 to 30 pop cities.
 
I do use avoid growth as well on occasion due to property control. If I feel I cannot manage, which I used to find really hard, disease or crime I would set all my cities to a 6/13/21 limit
 
How do you set them to specific limit? Just wait till they reach that size and then hit the No Growth button? Is there more you can do somehow?
 
Bug report (SVN 10512): I seem to have been given the option to take Zealous I despite taking Spiritual I and the tooltip saying I couldn't. I don't have the relevant save any more, though - sorry!

Can I also humbly suggest tying the unlocking of new tiers to total culture, rather than to technology? That would help to improve the value of culture, and would be consistent with using culture to determine when you get new traits. (In fact, until I checked the civilopedia just now, I'd been assuming that it did rely on culture already, and was very surprised to find it didn't.) Because of the way the cost for a new trait scales, blocking off high tier stuff until high technology actually punishes civilisations who improve their culture too much - they'll end up with a mishmash of low tier traits that don't really support each other, and when they finally get to Ren/In Lifestyle, they'll find the culture requirements are too high and they can hardly get any higher tier traits. Conversely, someone who deliberately avoids producing much culture until they get to Ren Lifestyle will find they have a load of cheap character developments still left which they can spend on new tier 2 traits.
 
Because of the way the cost for a new trait scales, blocking off high tier stuff until high technology actually punishes civilisations who improve their culture too much - they'll end up with a mishmash of low tier traits that don't really support each other, and when they finally get to Ren/In Lifestyle, they'll find the culture requirements are too high and they can hardly get any higher tier traits. Conversely, someone who deliberately avoids producing much culture until they get to Ren Lifestyle will find they have a load of cheap character developments still left which they can spend on new tier 2 traits.
And that's quite intentional. I wouldn't call it punishment so much as urging some balance to the approach you play. Great People production is very similar when you consider how it works with corporation generation. As for traits not supporting each other, I think there's a lot more synergies to explore than may meet the eye if you feel the traits cannot endlessly combine to find greater synergistic benefits between them.
 
How do you set them to specific limit? Just wait till they reach that size and then hit the No Growth button? Is there more you can do somehow?

Nope that is the only way. Wait till pop 6/13/21 then press avoid growth. Usually it is 6 pop for Prehist then 13 for ancient then above for all other eras. I usually just go for the highest pop I need for certain structures. Saves on property management.

However this current run I have done nearly no property management and I am still fine
 
We've got some major changes in the Mod now with latest Commit to growth, early Gold and early research. Un fortunately there is also a Bu that will cause a CTD after 5-7 turns of play.
 
And that's quite intentional. I wouldn't call it punishment so much as urging some balance to the approach you play. Great People production is very similar when you consider how it works with corporation generation. As for traits not supporting each other, I think there's a lot more synergies to explore than may meet the eye if you feel the traits cannot endlessly combine to find greater synergistic benefits between them.

But that's not true in any other part of the game. Great People can be saved up, and kept for when you do want to use them; indeed some uses (golden ages) require you to do that. Thus the worst that happens if you "over-produce" great people is that you have to keep them safe for a few centuries until they're able to do what you want. If you "over-produce" culture you'll be unable to get at the higher tier traits at all, or at least not for a much longer time.

And while there are of course synergies between the traits, most of the traits seem designed to support a particular style of play. Taking lots of different tier 1 traits may not actually be weaker than committing to a smaller number of traits, but it means you can't specialise so much. For example, in my own game I'm experimenting with a "get all the religions" strategy, and so getting Spiritual II ASAP after getting to renaissance is very important for me.

Besides, I don't think that a mechanic pushing you away from culture towards research can be said to be urging balance in how you play :lol:
 
But that's not true in any other part of the game. Great People can be saved up, and kept for when you do want to use them; indeed some uses (golden ages) require you to do that. Thus the worst that happens if you "over-produce" great people is that you have to keep them safe for a few centuries until they're able to do what you want. If you "over-produce" culture you'll be unable to get at the higher tier traits at all, or at least not for a much longer time.

And while there are of course synergies between the traits, most of the traits seem designed to support a particular style of play. Taking lots of different tier 1 traits may not actually be weaker than committing to a smaller number of traits, but it means you can't specialise so much. For example, in my own game I'm experimenting with a "get all the religions" strategy, and so getting Spiritual II ASAP after getting to renaissance is very important for me.

Besides, I don't think that a mechanic pushing you away from culture towards research can be said to be urging balance in how you play :lol:
I do see what you mean and it played into the thinking in the design. There's 3 factors that weighed in you might not have considered. 1) The game isn't ready for you to have the kind of power you'll get from a tier II or III trait before they become available. The values assume a certain level of development has taken place before you can take these kinds of modifications without balance being more upset. AND 2) Something has to deter the obvious strategy of using traits to pump more culture to pump out more traits overall, without wanting the culture as a benefit for its other reasons. AND 3) The earlier you get a trait, the longer it influences your output, the more impacting it is overall in the game.

I know I still need to open up limitless national culture amounts earned. And I know that it seems like it would take so much culture you couldn't possibly get too many tier II and tier III traits, even less the more you got in tier I. However, the synergistic benefits, even crossing between differing types of trait strategies, can be as or more powerful than the mere improved degree of stats on a tier II or III trait.

For example, combining spiritual with glorious - sure it's obvious right? More frequent GAs from Spiritual from Prophets born, with longer and stronger GAs from Glorious to counteract the GA length penalty of Spiritual, is more powerful in combination than either trait is alone, by far. Then, crossing into a whole 'nother category for playing on that same type of synergy, Strategist also adding more GAs from the birthing of Great Generals, then another trait to help you get more great generals, then another to counteract the penalties from what you've accumulated so far and so on. Blends are strong. Often stronger than the next Tier of a specialization.

Then consider what a huge nation in a developed game can do to get more culture by ACTUALLY using the slider for something other than research!!! *gasp* Is it worth it? When you're talking about the power you get from a Tier II or III trait, it may well be. Playing FOR trait selections is intended to be a strategy that can compete with research, and it may take knowing when to let off the pressure and when to best put on the pressure and having the strategic cleverness to withhold some effort in that direction until later in the game might enable you to play to go HIGH with traits as opposed to WIDE with traits.

You say nothing in the game is like this but city spreading strategies already contain this same duality of interesting choices (tall vs wide) as well. No, nothing QUITE works like this, which is part of what gives it its own character. You may be the first to note some of the intricacies of strategic consideration that I intended players to have to find for themselves.

It's hard at the moment to guess exactly where we'll be in the late game with trait accumulation until someone gets there and experiences it. It seems like it gets prohibitive but with so many wonders doubling the base culture output after so many years in play, more techs opening up more powerful cultural buildings, and all of us being so used to culture being something to downplay as not highly valuable after our cities get to the final rungs - this introducing a very different way to think of it - you might shock yourself at how much culture you can plug out if you're still caring about it later into the game. I don't intend for all of your traits to go past Tier I, just a few at most throughout the whole game. The rest would be a matter of finding great synergies between lower end traits to build your platform of mods upon.

I think players get used to the quick few they get right up front and are hoping it won't get too tough to get the more advanced ones later but they are meant to be very difficult to get. It's designed to be somewhat like military ranks. You might get to e5 (5th rank) within 4 years of dedicated service, but you can very easily only get to be as far as e7 (of 10) by the time you retire at 20 yrs.

There's something else I thought to bring up here but I forgot what it was... I'll come back and comment on it when it comes to me again.
 
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I do see what you mean and it played into the thinking in the design. There's 3 factors that weighed in you might not have considered. 1) The game isn't ready for you to have the kind of power you'll get from a tier II or III trait before they become available. The values assume a certain level of development has taken place before you can take these kinds of modifications without balance being more upset. AND 2) Something has to deter the obvious strategy of using traits to pump more culture to pump out more traits overall, without wanting the culture as a benefit for its other reasons. AND 3) The earlier you get a trait, the longer it influences your output, the more impacting it is overall in the game.

1) Do you mean that the Tier II traits are stronger in absolute terms than the Tier I ones (and therefore it would be problematic to allow some civilisations to get access to those traits earlier than others) or do you mean that they would synergise excessively well with an undeveloped empire if you were allowed to take them early?

If you meant the former, then we run into the issue I was bringing up - that if you build around culture you end up with worse traits than if you didn't. On the other hand, if you unlock tier II traits after a certain amount of culture - say you get access to them when you get your fifth trait, or whatever the appropriate balance point is to make most civilisations get it from their first renaissance + trait - then most civs will get their tier II traits at the "correct" stage of the game, and those which get them early are the ones who have invested heavily in culture in a way that would normally have been suboptimal. Which seems to be the general approach you were aiming for in designing this anyway - that you have the strategic option to pour commerce, buildings, etc into culture in a way you normally wouldn't.

If you meant the latter, then firstly, I'd point you back to your own arguments about why preeminence isn't overpowered just because it's strong early game. And secondly, would you mind giving a few examples of this? I'm struggling to see how the higher tier traits are unusually useful in the early game compared with the late game.

2) Why does that need to be stopped? You can build production-enhancing buildings, or research improvements to research. If you're spending your first trait on something that enhances your culture so you can get more traits, you're not spending it on something improving your civilisation in other ways, which could themselves be used to enhance your culture and/or the other aspects of your empire. And I don't think that spending a trait just to get more traits is going to be a good strategy at all, due to how the costs scale. You'd have to have the trait single-handedly multiply your overall culture gain by 10 just to break even! In fact, the only reason to even consider doing such a thing would be if the later traits were more valuable than the earlier ones, such as in the way I'm proposing. And even then it would be a case of sacrificing most of a trait in order to get access to the higher tier traits sooner.

(Maths note: If you didn't care about culture for anything else - the scenario you suggested - and the trait, say, doubled your culture, then for about 4/5 of the game it won't actually be giving you anything at all for you, as you'll have the same number of traits as you would have normally, including the one you used for culture. And during the remaining 1/5 of the time, you'll have one more trait than you would have otherwise, but you spent one of those traits on improving your culture which you don't care about outside this calculation. Thus you'll spend about 4/5 of the game effectively down one trait, and 1/5 effectively breaking even - a terrible exchange if you aren't getting more advanced traits in return, and a dubious one even if you are.)

3) True, of course. But there's more than one way to restrict things to later in the game, and requiring you to have earned a certain number of traits (ie gained a certain number of points of culture) before unlocking higher tier ones will provide a delaying mechanic just as well as restricting by gateway techs (which, after all, is basically just requiring you to have gained a certain number of points of research).

Edit: I've just reread your point, and realised you might have been saying that the long-term weaker trait arrangement is part of the cost of getting your traits early. But that's a bit of a red herring, isn't it? The (fairly significant) cost for getting your traits early is that you have to pump culture, at the expense of other things! Of course if you choose to focus on unlocking new traits quickly, they'll have more impact on the game. The same is true of technology, of building, of units (especially units - not much point having an amazing doom stack that will be ready in 100 turns if your enemy is attacking your capital right now!), of great people, and of pretty much everything else! It's a fundamental design element of civilisation, and most other strategy games: what do you prioritise in order to start getting the benefit from soonest?

I know I still need to open up limitless national culture amounts earned. And I know that it seems like it would take so much culture you couldn't possibly get too many tier II and tier III traits, even less the more you got in tier I. However, the synergistic benefits, even crossing between differing types of trait strategies, can be as or more powerful than the mere improved degree of stats on a tier II or III trait.

For example, combining spiritual with glorious - sure it's obvious right? More frequent GAs from Spiritual from Prophets born, with longer and stronger GAs from Glorious to counteract the GA length penalty of Spiritual, is more powerful in combination than either trait is alone, by far. Then, crossing into a whole 'nother category for playing on that same type of synergy, Strategist also adding more GAs from the birthing of Great Generals, then another trait to help you get more great generals, then another to counteract the penalties from what you've accumulated so far and so on. Blends are strong. Often stronger than the next Tier of a specialization.

That would indeed be strong. However, it would not be particularly strong for my strategy - the golden age part of the trait was only a nice side bonus for me, and it was the "benefit from having lots of religions in your empire" mechanics that I chose the trait for. Now I'm not trying to make this into a demand for my personal strategy to be catered for, but this is an example of how some strategies work fine with a culture heavy strategy, while others - the ones which rely on only one or two traits - don't work well at all.

Also, haven't you rather undercut your own argument 1 from your first paragraph? If blends are often stronger than a single Tier of a specialisation, then how can it be OP to allow higher Tier options instead of blends?

I need to go, so will address the rest of the post later.
 
1) Do you mean that the Tier II traits are stronger in absolute terms than the Tier I ones (and therefore it would be problematic to allow some civilisations to get access to those traits earlier than others) or do you mean that they would synergise excessively well with an undeveloped empire if you were allowed to take them early?
Both. More the 2nd than the first.
, or whatever the appropriate balance point is to make most civilisations get it from their first renaissance + trait - then most civs will get their tier II traits at the "correct" stage of the game, and those which get them early are the ones who have invested heavily in culture in a way that would normally have been suboptimal.
Part of the problem (and this was the last point I was forgetting to make earlier) with this is that I currently have no idea how many traits most civilizations will be getting by Ren era, and even less of a concept of how many the average would be getting around Information age. It would take a lot more testing to try and target the balance in this manner, which perhaps someday I'll attempt, but things can change fast so it was better to anchor the unlocking of tiers directly to when they are intended to be unlocked, regardless of the average earnings that can vary based on future modding in other areas - at least for now.
Which seems to be the general approach you were aiming for in designing this anyway - that you have the strategic option to pour commerce, buildings, etc into culture in a way you normally wouldn't.
Culture is obviously useful in the beginning of the game - it's only later in the game when you've capped out your land grab that it otherwise loses all value. So culture has more value on its own merit earlier on, making earlier holding back on culture painful in other ways.
If you meant the former, then we run into the issue I was bringing up - that if you build around culture you end up with worse traits than if you didn't.
Sorta true - also means you'll get a lot more of them and thus a lot more interaction options between them and in the late game if you've played to enhance culture then you've got hope of getting both later tier traits AND more lower tier ones. It would be interesting to see what could actually be done and will take a number of games to see what the best cultural output strategies really amount to.
And secondly, would you mind giving a few examples of this? I'm struggling to see how the higher tier traits are unusually useful in the early game compared with the late game.
Less developed cities would benefit more from stronger +/-yields and commerces than larger cities that consider those higher base bonus amounts to be more blending in with what a normal building source usually gives. That's just one example. With fewer cities, some things have greater impact. As for Preeminent, despite my arguments, I saw that it makes sense to consider the capital bonus %s to have a varying value depending on the stage of the game and HAVE reacted to that feedback to adjust it so that it won't be such a clear choice at the beginning and stay more relevant for more advanced selections.
2) Why does that need to be stopped?
So that its not an obvious, brainless strategy that players would naturally gravitate towards without there being a barb in the concept that makes it balance out with other strategies.
And I don't think that spending a trait just to get more traits is going to be a good strategy at all, due to how the costs scale. You'd have to have the trait single-handedly multiply your overall culture gain by 10 just to break even!
Yeah, well at least there's recognition of that intended barb in that approach as well.
But that's a bit of a red herring, isn't it?
Yes, and thus it challenges the player to consider another layer of strategy deeper than just pump as hard as you can to collect as much as possible, just like what happens if you overgrow your empire too fast you can collapse your economy (if things are balanced properly this works this way at least.)
some strategies work fine with a culture heavy strategy, while others - the ones which rely on only one or two traits - don't work well at all.
On such a strategy, minimizing your cultural output until you've tech unlocked higher tiers would then be a wise move. It's not the best approach for all ways of approaching it of course, and it's not to say it's an invalid approach. It takes more discipline to NOT reach out quickly to get your traits than it does to grab them as quickly as you can. You also have to wait longer to get the platform traits of your strategy this way. Another thing you can do with more trait selections if you really want to only focus on a few positive ones, is to eliminate the negative ones with your positive picks when those come up that would otherwise have you selecting strategies outside the scope of your plan. If you play to only maintain positive traits, you won't have a lot but you won't be burdened by much either and if you moderate your culture output rather than racing for it, you would find yourself capable of reaching the higher tiers more easily thanks to your discipline. That's usually how life is right? We want a LOT but if we think more about the big goals than the small immediate ones and plan properly to get those big goals met, we achieve them faster and more powerfully than by spreading ourselves to grab at every piece of candy we can find.

If blends are often stronger than a single Tier of a specialisation, then how can it be OP to allow higher Tier options instead of blends?
It's not so much that it's flat out OP, it's that the mods are really meant to harmonize with that level of the game yet. Focused in one region, some things CAN tip a balance, not just about power, but about power concentrated in the same place. Consider what getting Industrial II in Classical or even Ancient might do, for example, in comparison to the impact it would have at Renaissance, when its modifiers are blending into the overall soup more like the buildings that come about at that stage anyhow.

The military ones too, like say, Aggressive... try holding off an Aggressive II promoted force when you haven't had as much time to develop your defenders against it.
 
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