Poll: How should Free Spies & WC Votes from Policies and Wonders Scale?

[pineappledan]

Policies and wonders that give free spies and WC votes scale with the number of CS in the game

Right now, the scaling on these bonuses fluctuates based on adding/removing CSs over the course of the game. This means the power of these bonuses can increase/decrease through player action.

• You can remove the number of extra Spies/WC votes globally by killing city-states
• alternatively, you can inflate the global bonuses to all player’s WC/Spies bonuses by forcing weaker players into revolt and turning their cities into CSs.

If the scaling of these bonuses were based only on the number of CS in the game set in the game startup menu, then the power of these policies could still change based on game settings, but not be rigged by player action.

This currently affects the following Wonders and Policies:
Free Spies:

• +1 National Intelligence Agency / English White Tower (National Wonder)
• +1 Foreign Service (Statecraft)
• +1 Covert Action (Freedom)
• +3 Double Agents (Order)

Free World Congress Votes

• +2 Westminster Palace (Wonder)
• +1 United Nations (World Congress Project Wonder)
• +1 Consulates (Statecraft)
• +4 Treaty Organization

Do we want players to be able to manipulate these bonuses like this, or should the the power of these bonuses be cached as a static value based on the number of City-states the player set at the game’s start?

 

[pineappledan]

The reason this came to my attention is that I made a custom civ, Phoenicia, that can settle new city-states, and it seriously inflated the number of spies/votes, which was not my intent. I was in the midst of creating an ad hoc fix that would make these policies/wonders static values if Phoenicia were in the game, but I figured others might be interested in this issue more generally. Phoenicia only does something that every other civ can do -- trigger cities to rebel and become free city-states -- they just do it faster.

This became especially noticeable with the changes to the diplomacy AI. The AI now gobbles up city-states at a much greater frequency, and that has a major effect on these policies' and wonders' respective balance.

 

[CrazyG]

Right now, policies and wonders that give free spies and WC votes scale with the number of CS in the game. This means the power of these bonuses can increase/decrease through player action.

• You can remove the number of extra Spies/WC votes globally by killing city-states
• alternatively, you can inflate the global bonuses to all player’s WC/Spies bonuses by forcing weaker players into revolt and turning their cities into CSs.

I always thought the intention was to base the number off of the starting number of City-States.

On another note it isn't clear to me why spies should scale. Votes I understand but spies I do not.

 

[pineappledan]

Right. I thought it was like that too in vanilla, but VP added a way to add CS mid-game. But is it good counter play that a player could hypothetically wipe out every CS and completely neutralize several wonders and policies by taking their scaling to 0? Or is that unfair that a civ can ruin another civ’s policy/wonder choices like that?

 

[CrazyG]

But is it good counter play that a player could hypothetically wipe out every CS and completely neutralize several wonders and policies by taking their scaling to 0? Or is that unfair that a civ can ruin another civ’s policy/wonder choices like that?

You should get X votes at game start, and it should stay at X votes. Otherwise you get weird results, like an civ who wants to win by diplomacy but conquers an enemy CS and takes away their own votes by accident.

Conquering CS already denies votes by denying city-states.

 

[azum4roll]

Global Hegemony requirement scales, and should be kept as is (otherwise you can just prevent a DV by killing CS).

Non-scaling congress votes, however, may lead to the opposite, i.e. creating so many CS that you can't get enough votes to win.

Any middle ground we can reach?

 

[pineappledan]

Non-scaling congress votes, however, may lead to the opposite, i.e. creating so many CS that you can't get enough votes to win.

Any middle ground we can reach?

The middle ground is just having the CS scaling only scale on the map setting. ie. the bonus that gives 1 WC vote for every 8 CS would still give 2 votes if you left the game at the standard 16 CS, but you couldn't create more CS by having players' cities revolt midway through the game.

I hardly see how you could possibly create so many CS that you can't get enough votes to win. You can get 2 votes from every CS, either by planting an Embassy or by allying those created CS. That makes it Easier to win.

I'm not suggesting we eliminate scaling, I'm suggesting we eliminate scaling on anything other than map settings

 

[Ranslee]

I think it's good to have scaling, but we should use the original amount of city states for everything and list the amounts in the tooltips.

 

[pineappledan]

Is there something I should reword in my OP? I never suggested we remove all scaling on number of CS, only that we stop the number of CS from being updated mid-game.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not suggesting we eliminate scaling, I'm suggesting we eliminate scaling on anything other than map settings

Yeah that wasn't clear to me when I first read through this. Rereading the OP I can see the merit of the proposal. In summary.

• Hegemony is not affected by this concept, it still scales as before.
• All "Gain X votes Per Y CS" is chosen at game start, and remains static regardless of CS adjustment in the game.

Only potential issue I can see, if you could get into a scenario where you have enough scalers that the best way for you to "get more votes" is to kill all the CS, lowering the hegemony vote requirement, while maintaining a large number of votes through your base scalers. Is that really a problem though...I mean a little gunboat diplomacy never hurt anyone

 

[InkAxis]

Yeah it should just be set at the beginning of the game and then not change.

Only potential issue I can see, if you could get into a scenario where you have enough scalers that the best way for you to "get more votes" is to kill all the CS, lowering the hegemony vote requirement, while maintaining a large number of votes through your base scalers. Is that really a problem though...I mean a little gunboat diplomacy never hurt anyone

Not only is that not an issue but probably in most circumstances you would lose more votes by losing embassies/CS votes. And killing opponent CS you can already do.

 

[Stalker0]

Not only is that not an issue but probably in most circumstances you would lose more votes by losing embassies/CS votes.

Well I wouldn't kill my own allies of course, I would just murder everyone else's. The theoretical drawback right now is this could also weaken my core scalers, whereas with the change my scalers remain strong, I lower the hegemony vote total I need to win, and I deny an opponent votes. Its a win win win.

But again, I don't think that's necessarily bad, I really don't mind that there are good incentives to kill CS in the late game, that's just part of the warmonger gig to me. Now I do think CS need some better counters (which we are working on), but the incentive should remain strong.